ma.8 


Chni 


Pi 


\ 


21 W 


7 

•— -      -  .-  ^r  .         **-«r  -•       — '     ^^"  ^       ^"^^ 

c 


MRS.    BUDLONG'S 
CHRISTMAS    PRESENTS 


.4  MRS.  BUDLONG'S  * 
CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 


BY 

RUPERT   HUGHES 

AUTHOE  OF 
"EXCUSE  ME,"  "THE  OLD  NEST,"  ETC. 


D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 
NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON:    MCMXII 


MRS.  BUDLONG'S 
CHRISTMAS   PRESENTS 

I 

AT  THE  SIGN  OF  THE  PIANO  LAMP 

THE  morning  after  Christmas 
Eve  is  the  worst  morning-after 
there  is.  The  very  house  suffers  the 
headache  that  follows  a  prolonged 
spree.  Remorse  stalks  at  large;  re- 
morse for  the  things  one  gave — and 
did  not  give — and  got. 

Everybody    must    act    a   general 
glee  which  can  be  felt  only  specific- 
ally, if  at  all.     Everybody  must  ex- 
claim   about    everything    Oh!    and 
[i] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

Ah!  and  How  Sweet  of  You!  and 
Isn't  it  Perfectly  Dear!  The  very 
THING  I  Wanted!  and  How  DID 
you  EVER  Guess  it? 

Christmas  morning  in  the  town  of 
Carthage  is  a  day  when  most  of  the 
people  keep  close  at  home,  for  Christ- 
mas is  another  passover.  It  is  San- 
ta Claus  that  passes  over. 

People  in  Carthage  are  not  rich; 
the  shops  are  not  grandiose,  and  in- 
ter-family presents  are  apt  to  be  triv- 
ial and  futile — or  worse  yet,  utile. 

The  Carthaginian  mother  gener- 
ally finds  that  Father  has  credited 
the  hat  she  got  last  fall,  to  this 
Christmas;  the  elder  brothers  re- 
ceive warm  under-things  and  the 
young  ones  brass-toed  boots,  mitts 
and  mufflers.  The  girls  may  find 

[2] 


THE  PIANO  LAMP 

something  ornamental  in  their  stock- 
ings, and  their  stockings  may  be  silk 
or  nearly — but  then  girls  have  to  be 
foolishly  diked  up  anyway,  or  they 
will  never  be  married  out.  Dressing 
up  daughters  comes  under  the  head 
of  window-display  or  coupons,  and 
is  charged  off  to  publicity. 

Nearly  everybody  in  Carthage — 
except  Mrs.  Ulysses  S.  G.  Budlong 
—celebrates  Christmas  behind  closed 
doors.  People  find  it  easier  to  rhap- 
sodize when  the  collateral  is  not 
shown.  It  is  amazing  how  far  a  Car- 
thaginian can  go  on  the  most  meager 
donation.  The  formula  is  usually: 
"We  had  Such  a  lovely  Christmas  at 
our  house.  What  did  I  get?  Oh, 
so  many  things  I  can't  reMember!" 

But  Mrs.  Ulysses  S.  G.  Budlong 

[3] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

does  not  celebrate  her  Christmasses 
behind  closed  doors — or  rather  she  did 
not:  a  strange  change  came  over  her 
this  last  Christmas.  She  used  to 
open  her  doors  wide — metaphoric- 
ally, that  is;  for  there  was  a  storm- 
door  with  a  spring  on  it  to  keep  the 
cold  draught  out  of  the  hall. 

As  regular  as  Christmas  itself  was 
the  oh-quite-informal  reception  Mrs. 
Budlong  gave  to  mitigate  the  inef- 
fable stupidity  of  Christmas  after- 
noon: that  dolorous  period  when  one 
meditates  the  ancient  platitude  that 
anticipation  is  better  than  realiza- 
tion; and  suddenly  understands  why 
it  is  blesseder  to  give  than  to  receive : 
because  one  does  not  have  to  wear 
what  one  gives  away. 

On  Christmas  Mrs.  U.  S.  G.  Bud- 

[4] 


long  took  all  the  gifts  she  had 
gleaned,  and  piled  them  on  and 
around  the  baby  grand  piano  in  the 
back  parlor.  There  was  a  piano 
lamp  there,  one  of  those  illuminated 
umbrellas — about  as  large  and  as 
useful  as  a  date-palm  tree. 

Along  about  that  time  in  the  after- 
noon when  the  Christmas  dinner  be- 
comes a  matter  of  hopeless  remorse, 
Mrs.  Budlong's  neighbors  were  ex- 
pected to  drop  in  and  view  the  loot 
under  the  lamp.  It  looked  like  hos- 
pitality, but  it  felt  like  hostility. 
She  passed  her  neighbors  under  the 
yoke  and  gloated  over  her  guests, 
while  seeming  to  overgloat  her  gifts. 

But  she  got  the  gifts.  There  was 
no  question  of  that.  By  hook  or  by 
crook  she  saw  to  it  that  the  bazaar 

[5] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

under  the  piano  lamp  always 
groaned. 

One  of  the  chief  engines  for  keep- 
ing up  the  display  was  the  display 
itself.  Everybody  who  knew  Mrs. 
Budlong — and  not  to  know  Mrs. 
Budlong  was  to  argue  oneself  un- 
known— knew  that  he  or  she  would 
be  invited  to  this  Christmas  triumph. 
And  being  invited  rather  implied  be- 
ing represented  in  the  tribute. 

Hence  ensued  a  curious  rivalry  in 
Carthage.  People  vied  with  each 
other  in  giving  Mrs.  Budlong  pres- 
ents; not  that  they  loved  Mrs.  Bud- 
long  more,  but  that  they  loved  com- 
parisons less. 

The  rivalry  had  grown  to  ridicu- 
lous proportions.  But  of  course 
Mrs.  Budlong  did  not  care  how  ri- 
[6] 


THE  PIANO  LAMP 

diculous  it  grew;  for  it  could  hardly 
have  escaped  her  shrewd  eyes  how 
largely  it  advantaged  her  that  people 
should  give  her  presents  in  order  to 
show  other  people  that  some  people 
needn't  think  they  could  show  off  be- 
fore other  people  without  having 
other  people  show  that  they  could 
show  off,  too,  as  well  as  other  people 
could.  The  pyschology  must  be  cor- 
rect, for  it  is  incoherent. 

Mrs.  Budlong  herself  was  never 
known  to  break  any  of  the  com- 
mandments, but  in  her  back  parlor 
her  neighbors  made  flitters  of  the  one 
against  coveting  thy  neighbor's  and- 
so-forth  and  so-on. 

It  was  when  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Coun- 
ty Road  Supervisor  Detwiller  were 
walking  home  from  one  of  these  oc- 
[7] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

casions,  that  Mr.  Detwiller  was  say- 
ing: "Well,  ain't  Mizzes  Budlong 
the  niftiest  little  gift -getter  that  ever 
held  up  a  train?  How  on  earth  did 
We  happen  to  get  stung?" 

"I  don't  know,  Roscoe.  It's  one 
of  those  things  you  can't  get  out  of 
without  getting  out  of  town  too. 
Here  we've  been  and  gone  and 
skimped  our  own  children  to  buy 
something  that  would  show  up  good 
in  Mrs.  Budlong's  back  parlor,  and 
when  I  laid  eyes  on  it  in  all  that 
clutter — why,  if  it  didn't  look  like 
something  the  cat  brought  in,  I'll 
eat  it!" 

Mr.  Detwiller  had  only  one  con- 
solation— and  he  grinned  over  it: 

"Well,  there's  no  use  cryin'  over 
spilt  gifts.  But  did  you  see  how  she 

[8]    ' 


THE  PIANO  LAMP 

stuck  old  Widower  Clute  for  that 
Japanese  porcelain  vace — I  notice 
she  called  it  vahs?" 

"Porcelain?"  sniffed  Mrs.  Detwil- 
ler.  "Paper  musshay!" 

"Well,  getting  even  a  paper — 
what  you  said — from  old  Clute  is 
equal  to  extracting  solid  gold  from 
anybody  else.  He's  the  stingiest 
man  in  sev'n  states.  He  don't  care 
any  more  for  a  two  dollar  bill  than 
he  does  for  his  right  eye.  I  bet  she 
gave  him  ether  before  he  let  go." 

"Oh,  she  works  all  the  old  bache- 
lors and  widowers  that  way,"  said 
Mrs.  Detwiller,  with  a  mixture  of 
contempt  and  awe.  "Invites  'em 
to  a  dinner  party  or  two  around 
Christmas  marketing  time,  and  be- 
gins to  talk  about  how  pretty  the 
[9] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

shops  are  and  how  tempting  every- 
thing she  wants  is;  says  she  saw  a 
nimitation  bronze  clock  at  Strouther 
and  Streckfuss's  that  it  almost  broke 
her  heart  to  leave  there.  But  o' 
course  she  couldn't  afford  to 
buy  those  kind  of  things  for  herself 
now  when  she's  got  to  remember  all 
her  dear  friends,  and  she  runs  on  and 
on  and  the  old  batch  growls,  'Stung 
again!'  and  goes  to  Strouther  and 
Streckfuss's  and  tells  Mr.  Streck- 
fuss  to  send  Mrs.  Budlong  that 
blamed  bronze  clock  she  was  admir- 
ing. And  that's  how  she  gets  things. 
I  could  do  it  myself  if  I'd  a  mind 
to." 

Mr.  Detwiller  felt  that  there  was 
more  envy  than  truth  in  this  last  re- 
mark, and  he  was  rash  enough  to 
[10] 


THE  PIANO  LAMP 

speak  up  for  justice:  "You  could  if 
you'd  a  mind  to?  Yep.  If  you'd  a 
mind  to!  That's  what  somebody 
said  about  Shakespeare's  plays. 
'I  could  a  wrote  'em  myself  if  I'd  a 
mind  to,'  says  he,  and  somebody  else 
said,  'Yes,  if  you'd  a  mind  to,'  he 
says.  And  that's  about  it.  Any 
body  could  do  what  Mizzes  Budlong 
does  if  they  had  the  mind  to ;  but  the 
thing  is,  she's  got  the  mind  to.  She 
goes  after  the  gifts — and  gits  'em. 
She  don't  almost  git  'em,  and  she 
ain't  goin'  to  git  'em.  She  gits  'em. 
And  what  gits  me  is  how  she  gits 


'em.3 


"Roscoe  Detwiller,  if  you're  goin' 
to  praise  that  woman  in  the  presence 
of  your  own  lawful  wife,  I'll  never 
speak  to  you  the  longest  day  I  live." 

2  [11] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

"Who's  praisin'  her?  I  was  just 
sayin' — •" 

"Why,  Roscoe  Detwiller,  you  did, 
too!  And  I  should  think  you'd  be 
ashamed  of  yourself." 

"Say,  what  ails  you?  Why,  I 
was  roastin'  her  to  beat  the  band." 

"And  to  think  that  on  Christmas 
day  of  all  days  I  should  live  to  hear 
my  own  husband  that  I've  loved  and 
cherished  and  worked  my  fingers  to 
the  bone  and  never  got  any  thanks 
and  other  women  keepin'  two  and 
three  hired  girls,  and  after  him  deny- 
in'  his  own  children  things  to  get  ex- 
pensive presents  for  a  shameless 
creature  like  that  Budlong  wom- 
an—" 

All  over  Carthage  on  Christmas 
afternoons  couples  were  similarly  at 

[12] 


THE  PIANO  LAMP 

loggerheads  over  Mrs.  Budlong's  an- 
nual triumph. 

Now  of  course  Mrs.  Budlong  did 
not  get  all  those  presents  without 
giving  presents.  Not  in  Carthage! 
It  might  have  been  possible  to  bam- 
boozle these  people  one  Christmas, 
but  never  another.  Mrs.  Budlong 
gave  heaps  of  presents.  Christmas 
was  an  industry  with  her,  an  am- 
bition; Christmas  was  her  career. 
It  had  long  ago  lost  its  religious  sig- 
nificance for  her,  as  for  nearly  every- 
body else  in  Carthage.  Even  Mr. 
Frankenstein  (the  Pantatorium  mag- 
nate) is  one  of  the  most  ardent  ad- 
vertisers of  Christmas  bargains,  while 
Isidore  Strouther  and  Esau  Streck- 
fuss  are  "almost  persuaded"  every 
December.  They  might  be  entirely 

[13] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

persuaded  if  it  were  not  for  the 
scenes  they  witness  in  their  aisles 
during  the  last  weeks  of  Yuletide  and 
the  aftermath  of  trying  to  collect 
from  the  Gentile  husbands  during 
Billtide. 

Mrs.  Budlong's  Christmas  pres- 
ents were  of  two  sorts:  those  she 
made  herself  and  those  she  made  her 
husband  pay  for.  He  was  the  typ- 
ical husband  who  never  fails  to 
settle  his  wife's  bills,  so  long  as  he 
may  raise  a  row  about  them  till  his 
wife  cries  and  looks  like  an  expensive 
luxury  which  only  a  really  successful 
man  could  afford.  Then  he  sub- 
sides until  the  first  of  the  next 
month. 


II 

CHRONICLES  OF  A  CRAFTSMAN 

MRS.  BUDLONG'S  cam- 
paign was  undertaken  with 
the  same  farsightedness  as  a  maga- 
zine editor's.  On  or  about  the 
Fourth  of  July  she  began  to  worry 
and  plan.  By  the  second  week  in 
August  she  had  her  tatting  well  un- 
der way.  By  the  middle  of  Septem- 
ber she  was  getting  in  her  em- 
broidered doilies.  The  earliest  frost 
rarely  surprised  her  with  her  quilts 
untufted.  And  when  the  first  snow 
flew,  her  sachet  bags  were  all  stuffed 
and  smelly. 

[15] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

She  was  very  feminine  in  her 
sense  of  the  value  of  her  own  time. 
At  missionary  meetings  she  would 
shed  tears  over  the  pathetic  pictures 
of  Oriental  women  who  spent  a  year 
weaving  a  rug  which  would  sell  for 
a  paltry  hundred  dollars  and  last  a 
mere  century  or  two.  Then  she 
would  cheerfully  devote  fifteen  days 
of  incessant  stitching  at  something 
she  carried  round  in  a  sort  of  drum- 
head. At  the  end  of  that  time  she 
would  have  completed  a  more  or  less 
intolerable  piece  of  colored  fabric 
which  she  called  a  "drape"  or  a 
"throw."  It  could  not  be  duplicated 
at  a  shop  for  less  than  $1.75,  and  it 
would  wash  perhaps  three  times. 

Mr.  Budlong  once  figured  that  if 
sweat-shop  proprietors  paid  wages 
[16] 


A  CRAFTSMAN 

at  the  scale  Mrs.  Budlong  established 
for  herself,  all  the  seamstresses  and 
seamsters  would  curl  up  round  their 
machines  and  die  of  starvation  the 
first  week.  But  he  never  told  Mrs. 
Budlong  this.  Fancy  stitching  did 
not  earn  much,  but  it  did  not  cost 
much;  and  it  kept  her  mysteriously 
contented.  She  was  stitching  herself 
to  her  own  home  all  the  time. 

The  Christmas  presents  Mrs.  Bud- 
long  made  herself  were  not  all  a 
matter  of  needle  and  thread.  Not 
at  all !  One  year  she  turned  her  sew- 
ing room  into  a  smithy.  She  gave 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Doctor  Tisnower  the 
loveliest  hand-hammered  brass  coal- 
scuttle that  ever  was  seen — and  with 
a  purple  ribbon  tied  to  its  tail.  They 
kept  flowers  in  it  several  summers, 
[17] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

till  one  cruel  winter  a  new  servant 
put  coal  in  it  and  completely  scut- 
tled it. 

The  same  year  she  gave  Mrs.  ex- 
Mayor  Cinnamon  a  hammered  brass 
version  of  a  C.  D.  Gibson  drawing. 
The  lady  and  gentleman  looked  as  if 
they  had  broken  out  with  a  combina- 
tion of  yellow  fever  and  smallpox, 
or  suffered  from  enlarged  pores  or 
something.  And  the  plum-colored 
plush  frame  didn't  sit  very  well  on 
the  vermilion  wall  paper.  But  Mrs. 
Cinnamon  hung  it  over  the  sofa  in 
the  expectation  of  changing  the  pa- 
per some  day.  It  stayed  there  until 
the  fateful  evening  when  Mr.  Nelson 
Chur  called  on  Miss  Editha  Cinna- 
mon and  was  just  warming  up  a 
proposal  that  had  held  over  almost 

[18] 


A  CRAFTSMAN 

as  long  as  the  wall  paper,  when  bang  I 
down  came  the  overhanging  brass 
drawing  and  bent  itself  hopelessly 
on  Mr.  Chur's  skull.  Mr.  Chur 
said  something  that  may  have  been 
Damocles.  But  he  did  not  propose, 
and  Mrs.  Budlong  was  weeks  won- 
dering why  Mrs.  Cinnamon  was  so 
snippy  to  her. 

The  hammered  brass  era  gave  way 
to  the  opposite  extreme  of  painted 
velvet.  They  say  it  is  a  difficult  art ; 
and  it  may  well  be.  Mrs.  Budlong's 
first  landscape  might  as  well  have 
been  painted  on  the  side  of  her  Scotch 
collie. 

Her  most  finished  roses  had  some- 
thing of  the  look  of  shaggy  tarantu- 
las that  had  fallen  into  a  paint  pot 
and  emerged  in  a  towering  rage. 
[19] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

It  was  in  that  velvetolene  stratum 
that  she  painted  for  the  church  a 
tasseled  pulpit  cloth  that  hung  down 
a  yard  below  the  Bible.  Dr.  Tor- 
padie  was  a  very  soothing  preacher, 
but  no  one  slept  o'sermons  during  the 
reign  of  that  pulpit  cloth. 

Mrs.  Budlong  was  so  elated  over 
the  success  of  it,  however,  that  she 
announced  her  intention  of  going  in 
for  stained  glass.  She  planned  a 
series  of  the  sweetest  windows  to  re- 
place those  already  in  the  church. 
But  she  never  got  nearer  to  that  than 
painted  china. 

The  painted  china  era  was  a  dire 
era.  The  cups  would  break  and  the 
colors  would  run,  and  they  never 
came  out  what  she  expected  after 
they  were  fired.  Of  course  she  knew 

[20] 


A  CRAFTSMAN 

that  the  pigments  must  suffer  alter- 
ation in  the  furnace,  but  there  was 
always  a  surprise  beyond  surprise. 

She  soon  became  accustomed  to 
getting  green  roses  with  crimson 
leaves,  and  deep  blue  apple  blossoms 
against  a  pure  white  sky,  but  when 
she  finished  one  complete  set  of  table 
china  in  fifty  pieces,  each  cup  and 
saucer  with  a  flower  on  it,  the  result 
looked  so  startlingly  like  something 
from  a  medical  museum,  that  she 
never  dared  give  the  set  away.  She 
lent  it  to  the  cook  to  eat  her  meals 
on.  The  set  went  fast. 

During  this  epoch  Master  Ulysses 
Budlong  Jr.  was  studying  at  school 
a  physiology  ornamented  with  a  few 
pictures  in  color  representing  the 
stomachs  of  alcohol  specialists. 

[21] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

They  were  intended,  perhaps,  to 
frighten  little  school  children  from 
frequenting  saloons  during  recess,  or 
to  warn  them  not  to  put  whisky  on 
their  porridge. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Mrs.  Bud- 
long  spent  two  weeks'  hard  labor 
painting  Easter  lilies  on  an  umbrella 
jug.  When  it  came  home  from  the 
furnace,  her  husband  stared  at  it  and 
mumbled : 

"It's  artistic,  but  what  is  it?" 
Little  Ulysses  shrieked:  "Oh,  I 
know!"  and  darting  away,  returned 
with  his  physiology  opened  at  one 
of  those  gastric  sunsets,  and — well, 
it  was  this  that  impelled  Mrs.  Bud- 
long  to  a  solemn  pledge  never  to 
paint  china  again — a  pledge  she  has 
nobly  kept. 

[22] 


A  CRAFTSMAN 

From  smeared  china  she  went  to 
that  art  in  which  a  woman  buys  some- 
thing at  a  store,  pulls  out  half  of  it, 
and  calls  the  remnant  drawn  work. 
A  season  of  this  was  succeeded  by  a 
mania  for  sofa  cushions.  It  fairly 
snowed  sofa  cushions  all  over  Car- 
thage that  Christmas;  and  Yale, 
Harvard  and  Princeton  pillows 
could  be  found  in  homes  that  had 
never  known  even  a  night  school 
alumnus. 

There  ensued  a  sober  period  of 
burnt  wood  and  a  period  of  burnt 
leather,  during  which  excited  neigh- 
bors with  a  keen  sense  of  smell  called 
the  fire  department  three  times  and 
the  board  of  health  once.  And  now 
Indian  heads  broke  out  all  over  town 
and  the  walls  looked  as  if  a  shoe- 

[23] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

maker's  apron  had  been  chosen  for 
the  national  pennant. 

There  were  various  other  spasms 
of  manufacture,  each  of  them  fash- 
ionable at  its  time  and  foolish  at  any- 
time. As  Mr.  Detwiller  said: 

"Somebody  ought  to  write  a  his- 
tory of  Mrs.  Budlong's  Christmas 
presents.  It  would  tell  the  complete 
story  of  all  the  darned  fool  fads  that 
American  women  have  been  up  to  for 
twenty  years." 

But  foolish  soever,  Mrs.  Budlong 
was  fair.  A  keen  sense  of  sports- 
manship led  her  to  give  full  notice  to 
such  people  as  she  planned  to  honor 
with  her  gifts.  She  knew  how  em- 
barrassing it  is  to  receive  presents 
from  one  to  whom  no  present  has 
been  sent,  and  she  made  it  a  point  of 

[24] 


A  CRAFTSMAN 

honor  somehow  to  forewarn  her 
prospective  beneficiaries  betimes. 
Her  favorite  method  was  the  classic 
device  of  pretending  to  let  slip  a  se- 
cret. For  instance: 

"Yesterday  morning,  my  dear,  I 
had  the  Strangest  exPerience.  It 
was  just  ten  o'clock.  I  remember 
the  hour  so  exactly  because  for  the 
last  few  days  I  have  made  it  a  rule  to 
begin  work  on  your  Christmas  pres- 
ent just  at  ten — Oh,  but  I  didn't 
mean  to  tell  you.  It  was  to  be  a  sur- 
prise. No,  don't  ask  me,  I  won't 
give  you  an  inkling,  but  I  really  think 
it  will  please  you.  It's  something 
you've  been  needing  for  Such  a  long 
time." 

And  she  left  the  victim  to  writhe 
from  then  on  to  Christmas,  trying 

[25] 


alternately  to  imagine  what  gift  was 
impending  and  what  would  be  an  ap- 
propriate counter-gift. 


Ill 

MISTRESS  OF  THE  REVELS 

IN  more  ways  than  one  Mrs.  Bud- 
long  kept  Carthage  on  the 
writhe.  Christmas  was  merely  the 
climax  of  a  ceaseless  activity.  All 
the  year  round  she  was  at  work  like 
a  yeast  alert  in  a  soggy  dough. 

She  was  forever  getting  up  things. 
She  was  one  of  those  terrible  women 
who  return  calls  on  time  or  a  little 
ahead.  That  made  it  necessary  for 
you  to  return  hers  earlier.  If  you 
didn't,  she  called  you  up  on  the  tele- 
phone and  asked  you  why  you  hadn't. 
You  had  to  promise  to  come  over  at 

3  [27] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

once  or  she'd  talk  to  you  till  your  ear 
was  welded  to  the  telephone.  Then 
if  you  broke  your  promise  she  called 
you  up  about  that.  She  got  in  from 
fifty-two  to  a  hundred  and  four  calls 
a  year,  where  one  or  two  would  have 
amply  sufficed  for  all  she  had  to  say. 
It  was  due  to  her  that  Carthage 
had  such  a  lively  social  existence— 
for  its  size.  Once,  when  she  fell  ill, 
the  people  felt  suddenly  as  passen- 
gers feel  when  a  street  car  is  suddenly 
braked  back  on  its  haunches.  All 
Carthage  found  itself  wavering  and 
poised  on  tiptoe  and  clinging  to 
straps;  and  then  it  sogged  back  on 
its  heels  and  waited  till  the  car  should 
resume  progress.  Mrs.  Budlong 
was  the  town's  motorman — or  "mo- 
torneer,"  as  they  say  in  Carthage, 

[28] 


MISTRESS  OF  THE  REVELS 

Before  she  was  out  of  bed,  she  had 
invitations  abroad  for  a  convalescent 
tea,  and  everybody  said,  "Here  we 
go  again!" 

If  strangers  visited  Carthage,  Mrs. 
Budlong  counted  them  her  clients  the 
moment  they  arrived.  Of  course, 
the  merely  commercial  visitors  she 
left  to  the  hackmen  at  the  station, 
but  friends  or  relatives  of  prominent 
people  could  not  escape  Mrs.  Bud- 
long's  well-meant  attentions.  It  was 
sometimes  embarrassing  when  rela- 
tives appeared — for  everybody  has 
Concealed  Relatives  that  he  is  per- 
fectly willing  to  leave  in  conceal- 
ment. 

Mrs.  Alex,    (pronounced  Ellick) 
Stubblebine  never  forgave  Mrs.  Bud- 
long  for  dragging  into  the  limelight 
[29] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

some  obscure  cousins  of  her  husband's 
who  had  drifted  into  Carthage  to  bor- 
row money  on  their  farm.  Mrs. 
Stubblebine  was  always  bragging 
about  her  people,  her  own  people  that 
is.  Her  husband's  people,  of  course, 
were  after  all  only  Stubblebines, 
while  her  maiden  name  was  Dilatush ; 
and  the  Dilatushes,  as  everybody 
knew,  were  related  by  marriage  to 
the  Tatums. 

But  these  were  Stubblebines  that 
came  to  town.  Mrs.  Stubblebine 
could  hardly  slam  the  door  in  their 
faces,  but  she  would  fain  have  locked 
the  doors  after  them.  She  would  not 
even  invite  them  out  on  the  front 
porch.  She  told  them  the  back  porch 
was  cosier  and  less  conspicuous. 
And  then  Mrs.  Budlong  had  to  call 

[30] 


MISTRESS  OF  THE  REVELS 

up  on  the  telephone  and  sing  out  in 
her  telephoniest  tone : 

"Oh,  my  dear,  I've  just  this  minute 
heard  you  have  guests — some  of  your 
dear  husband's  relatives.  Now  they 
must  come  to  me  to  dinner  to-morrow. 
Oh,  it  isn't  the  slightest  trouble,  I  as- 
Sure  you.  I'm  giving  a  little  party 
anyway.  I  won't  take  no  for  an  an- 
swer." 

And  she  wouldn't.  Mrs.  Stubble- 
bine  fairly  perspired  excuses,  but 
Mrs.  Budlong  finally  grew  so  suspi- 
cious that  she  had  to  accept;  or  leave 
the  impression  that  the  relatives  were 
burglars  or  counterfeiters  in  hiding. 
And  they  were  not — they  were  piti- 
fully honest. 

The  result  was  even  worse  than  she 
feared.  Mr.  Stubblebine's  cousin 
[si] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

was  so  shy  that  he  never  said  a  word 
except  when  it  was  pulled  out  of  him, 
and  then  he  said,  "Yes,  ma'am" ! 

In  Carthage  when  you  are  at  a  din- 
ner party  and  you  don't  quite  catch 
the  last  remark,  you  don't  snap 
"What?"  or  "How?"  or  "Wha'  jew 
say?"  Whatever  your  home  habits 
may  be,  at  a  dinner  party  or  before 
comp'ny,  you  raise  your  eyebrows 
gracefully  and  murmur,  "I  beg  your 
pardon." 

But  Mr.  Stubblebine's  rural  cousin 
grunted  "Huh?" — like  an  Indian 
chief  trying  to  scare  a  white  general. 
And  he  was  perfectly  frank  about 
the  intimate  processes  of  mastication. 

And  when  he  dropped  a  batch  of 
scalloped  oysters  into  his  watch 
pocket  he  solemnly  fished  them  out 

[32] 


with  a  souvenir  after-dinner  coffee 
spoon  having  the  Statue  of  Liberty 
for  a  handle  and  Brooklyn  Bridge  in 
the  bowl. 

And  the  wretch's  wife  was  so  nerv- 
ous that  she  talked  all  the  time  about 
people  the  others  had  never  seen  or 
heard  of.  And  she  said  she  "never 
used  tomattus."  And  she  wasn't 
ashamed  of  what  she  was  chewing 
either. 

Mrs.  Stubblebine  would  have  felt 
much  obliged  to  fate  if  she  had  been 
presented  with  an  apoplectic  stroke. 
But  she  had  to  sit  the  dinner  out. 
From  what  she  said  to  her  poor  hus- 
band afterward,  however,  one  might 
have  gathered  that  he  picked  out 
those  relatives  just  to  spite  her,  when 
as  a  matter  of  fact  he  had  always 

[33] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

loathed  them  and  regretted  them  and 
the  next  day  he  borrowed  enough 
money  to  lend  them  and  send  them 
back  to  the  soil. 

Mrs.  Budlong  had  constituted  her- 
self Entertainment  Committee  for  all 
sorts  of  visitors.  If  a  young  girl 
came  home  from  boarding  school  with 
a  classmate,  the  real  hostess  had 
hardly  time  to  show  her  to  the  spare 
room,  and  say,  "This  is  the  bath- 
room, round  here;  watch  out  for  the 
step.  And  if  the  water  don't  run 
just  wait — "  when  the  telephone 
would  go  Brrrrr!  And  there  would 
be  Mrs.  Budlong  brandishing  an  in- 
vitation to  a  dinner  party. 

When  the  supply  of  guests  ran  low 
she  would  visit  the  sick.  If  a  worn- 
out  housewife  slept  late  some  morn- 


MISTRESS  OF  THE  REVELS 

ing  to  catch  up,  Mrs.  Budlong  would 
hear  of  it  and  rush  over  with  a  broth 
or  something.  It  is  said  that  old  Miss 
Malkin  got  out  of  bed  with  an  un- 
finished attack  of  pneumonia,  just 
to  keep  from  eating  any  more  of 
Mrs.  Budlong's  wine  jellies. 

In  Carthage  one  pays  for  the  tele- 
phone by  the  year.  The  company 
lost  money  on  Mrs.  Budlong's  wire. 
As  a  telephoner  she  was  simply  inter- 
minable. She  would  spend  a  week- 
end at  the  instrument  while  the  pris- 
oner at  the  other  extreme  of  the  wire 
shifted  from  ear  to  ear,  sagged  along 
the  wall,  postponed  household  duties, 
made  signals  of  distress  to  other 
members  of  the  family,  and  generally 
cursed  Mr.  Alexander  Graham  Bell 
for  his  ingenuity. 

[35] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

Three  wall  telephones  were  chang- 
ed to  table  phones  on  Mrs.  Budlong's 
account,  and  Mrs.  Talbot  had  hers 
put  by  the  bed.  She  used  to  take 
naps  while  Mrs.  Budlong  talked  and 
she  trained  herself  to  murmur,  "Yes, 
dear,"  at  intervals  in  her  sleep. 

By  means  like  this  Mrs.  Budlong 
kept  Carthage  more  or  less  under  her 
thumb.  Carthage  squirmed  but  it 
could  not  crawl  out  from  under. 

This  is  the  story  of  how  the  thumb 
was  removed  for  good  and  all.  It 
was  Mrs.  Budlong  herself  that  re- 
moved it.  Carthage  could  never 
have  pried  it  up. 

And  strange  to  say  the  thumb  came 
off  because  it  grew  popular. 

Hitherto  Mrs.  Budlong  had  never 
been  truly  popular.  People  were 

[36] 


MISTRESS  OF  THE  REVELS 

merely  afraid  of  her.  She  was  a 
whipper-in,  a  social  bush-beater,  driv- 
ing the  populace  from  cover  like 
partridges.  She  would  not  let  the 
town  rest.  The  merchants  alone  ad- 
mired her,  for  she  was  the  cause  of 
much  buying  of  new  shoes,  new  hats, 
new  clothes,  fine  groceries,  olives, 
Malaga  grapes,  salted  almonds,  rai- 
sins, English  walnuts  and  other  things 
that  one  eats  only  at  parties.  She 
was  the  first  woman  in  Carthage  that 
ever  gave  a  luncheon  and  called  it 
breakfast,  as  years  before  she  had 
been  the  first  hostess  to  give  a  dinner 
at  any  time  except  in  the  middle  of 
the  day.  Also,  she  was  the  first  per- 
son there  to  say,  "Come  to  me"  when 
she  meant  'Come  to  our  house."  It 
had  a  Scriptural  sound  and  was 
[37] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

thought  shocking  until  Carthage 
grew  used  to  it. 

It  was  due  to  her  that  several  el- 
derly men  were  forced  into  their  first 
evening  dress.  They  had  thought  to 
escape  through  life  without  that  or- 
deal. Old  Clute  would  have  pre- 
ferred to  be  fitted  for  a  pine  box,  and 
would  have  felt  about  as  comfortable 
in  it.  He  tried  to  compromise  with 
the  tailor  on  a  garment  that  could 
serve  as  a  Prince  Albert  by  day  and  a 
"swaller  tail"  by  night,  but  Mr.  Kwe- 
skin  could  not  manage  it  even  though 
his  Christian  name  was  Moses. 

So  Mr.  Clute  blamed  Mrs.  Bud- 
long  for  yet  another  expense.  Hus- 
bands all  over  town  were  blaming 
Mrs.  Budlong  for  running  their 
families  into  fool  extravagances. 

[38] 


MISTRESS  OF  THE  REVELS 

Mothers  were  blaming  her  for  drag- 
ging them  round  by  the  nose  and 
leaving  them  no  rest.  But  every- 
body in  town  resentfully  obeyed  Mrs. 
Budlong,  though  Mrs.  Roscoe  Det- 
willer  wanted  to  organize  a  Home- 
Keepers  Union,  and  strike.  For  the 
women  never  dared  trust  themselves 
about  the  house  in  a  wrapper,  since 
Mrs.  Budlong  might  happen  in  as 
like  as  not — rather  liker  than  not. 

And  then,  just  as  the  town  was  fer- 
menting for  revolt,  Mrs.  Budlong 
came  into  a  lot  of  money. 


IV 

ONLY  A  MILLIONAIRE 

THAT  is,  Mr.  Budlong  came  into 
a  lot  of  money.  Which  meant 
that  Mr.  Budlong  would  be  per- 
mitted to  take  care  of  it  while  his 
wife  got  rid  of  it.  One  of  those  rel- 
atives, very  common  in  fiction,  and 
not  altogether  unknown  in  real  life, 
finally  let  go  of  her  money  at  the  be- 
hest of  her  impatient  undertaker. 
The  Budlongs  had  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  the  glorious  news  of  their  good 
fortune  in  big  headlines  in  the  Car- 
thage papers. 

It  was  the  only  display  Mr.  Bud- 

[40] 


ONLY  A  MILLIONAIRE 

long  ever  received  in  that  paper  with- 
out paying  for  it — excepting  the 
time  when  he  ran  for  Mayor  on  the 
opposition  ticket  and  was  referred  to 
in  letters  an  inch  high  as  "Candidate 
Nipped-in-the-Budlong." 

But  now  the  cornucopia  of  plenty 
had  burst  wide  open  on  the  front 
porch.  It  seemed  as  if  they  would 
have  to  wade  through  gold  dollars  to 
get  to  their  front  gate — when  the 
money  was  collected.  When  the 
money  was  collected. 

And  now  it  was  Mrs.  Budlong's 
telephone  that  rang  and  rang.  It 
was  she  that  was  called  up  and  called 
up.  It  was  she  that  sagged  along  the 
wall  and  shifted  from  foot  to  foot, 
from  elbow  to  elbow  and  ear  to  ear. 

After  living  in  Carthage  all  her  life 

[41] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

she  was  suddenly,  as  it  were,  wel- 
comed to  the  city  as  a  distinguished 
visiting  stranger.  And  now  she  had 
no  need  to  invite  people  to  return 
their  calls.  They  came  spontane- 
ously. Sometimes  there  were  a  dozen 
calling  at  once.  It  was  a  reception 
every  day.  There  were  overflow 
meetings  in  the  room  which  Mrs. 
Budlong  called  Mr.  Budlong's  "den." 
This  was  the  place  where  she  kept  the 
furniture  that  she  didn't  dare  keep  in 
the  parlor. 

People  who  had  never  come  to  see 
her  in  spite  of  her  prehensile  tele- 
phone, dropped  in  to  pay  up  some 
musty  old  call  that  had  lain  unre- 
turned  for  years.  People  who  had  al- 
ways come  formally,  even  funereally, 
rushed  in  as  informally  and  with  as 

[42] 


ONLY  A  MILLIONAIRE 

devouring  an  enthusiasm  as  old 
chums.  People  who  used  to  run  in 
informally  now  drove  up  in  vehicles 
from  MacMulkin's  livery  stable ;  or  if 
they  came  in  their  own  turn-outs  they 
had  the  tops  washed  and  the  harness 
polished,  and  the  gardener  and  fur- 
naceman  who  drove,  had  his  hat 
brushed,  was  not  allowed  to  smoke, 
and  was  urged  to  sit  up  straight  and 
for  heaven's  sake  to  keep  his  foot  off 
the  dashboard. 

People  who  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  devoting  a  day  or  two  to  cleaning 
up  a  year's  social  debts  and  went  up 
and  down  the  streets  dropping  dole- 
ful calls  like  wreaths  on  headstones, 
walked  in  unannounced  of  mornings. 
It  was  now  Mrs.  Budlong  that  had  to 
keep  dressed  up  all  day.  Everybody 

4  [43] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

accepted  the  inevitable  invitations  to 
have  a  cup  of  tea,  till  the  cook  struck. 
Cook  said  she  had  conthracted  to  cuke 
for  a  small  family,  not  to  run  a  con- 
tinurous  bairbecue.  Besides  she  had 
to  answer  the  doorbell  so  much  she 
couldn't  get  her  hands  into  the  dough, 
before  they  were  out  again.  And 
dinner  was  never  ready.  The 
amount  of  tea  consumed  and  bakery 
cake  and  the  butter,  began  to  alarm 
Mrs.  Budlong.  And  Carthage  peo- 
ple were  so  nervous  at  taking  tea  with 
a  millionairess  that  they  kept  drop- 
ping cups  or  setting  saucers  down  too 
hard. 

Mrs.  Budlong  had  never  a  moment 
the  whole  day  long  to  leave  the  house, 
and  she  suddenly  found  herself  with- 
out a  call  returned.  She  had  so  many 

[44] 


ONLY  A  MILLIONAIRE 

invitations  to  dinners  and  luncheons, 
that  her  life  became  a  hop,  skip  and 
jump. 

During  the  first  ecstasy  of  the  good 
news,  Mrs.  Budlong  had  raved  over 
the  places  she  was  going  to  travel, — 
Paris  (now  pronounced  Paree) ,  Lon- 
don, Vienna,  St.  Marks,  the  Lion  of 
Lucerne — she  talked  like  a  handbook 
of  Cook's  Tours.  To  successive  call- 
ers she  told  the  story  over  and  over 
till  the  rhapsody  finally  palled  on  her 
own  tongue.  She  began  to  hate 
Paree,  London,  Vienna,  St.  Marks, 
and  to  loathe  the  Lion  of  Lucerne. 
All  she  wanted  to  do  was  to  get 
out  of  town  to  some  quiet  retreat. 
Carthage  was  no  longer  quiet.  It 
simmered  to  the  boiling-over  point. 

Once  it  had  been  Mrs.  Budlong's 

[45] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

pride  to  be  the  social  leader  of  Carth- 
age. Now  that  her  husband  was 
worth  (or  to  be  worth)  a  hundred 
thousand  dollars  Carthage  seemed  a 
very  petty  parish  to  be  the  social 
leader  of.  She  began  to  read  New 
York  society  notes  with  expectancy, 
as  one  cons  the  Baedeker  of  a  town 
one  is  approaching. 

She  lay  awake  nights  wondering 
what  she  should  wear  at  Mrs.  Stuy- 
vesant  Square's  next  party  and  at 
Mrs.  Astor  House's  sociable.  She 
fretted  the  choice  whether  she  should 
take  a  letter  from  her  church  to  St. 
Bartholomew's  or  to  Grace  or  St. 
John's  the  Divine's.  And  all  the 
while  she  was  pouring  tea  for  the 
wives  of  harness  makers  and  drug- 
gists, dentists  and  grocers. 
[46] 


ONLY  A  MILLIONAIRE 

The  more  reason  for  not  appearing 
before  them  in  the  same  clothes  inces- 
santly. But  with  a  dinner  or  a  re- 
ception or  a  tea  or  a  ball  every  night, 
her  two  dressy-up  dresses  became  so 
familiar  that  at  one  party  when  she 
was  coming  downstairs  from  laying 
off  her  cloak  people  spoke  to  her 
dress  before  they  could  see  her  face. 
And  she  could  hardly  afford  to  get 
new  clothes,  for  after  all  she  had 
not  come  into  the  money.  She  had 
just  come  at  it,  or  toward  it;  or 
as  her  husband  began  to  say,  up 
against  it. 

Mr.  Budlong  was  kept  on  such 
tenterhooks  by  lawyers  and  papers  to 
sign,  titles  to  clear,  executors  and  ex- 
ecutrices  to  consult,  and  waivers, 
deeds,  indentures  and  things  that  he 
[47] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

had  no  time  for  his  regular  busi- 
ness. 

As  there  is  housemaid's  knee,  and 
painter's  colic,  so  there  is  million- 
aire's melancholia.  And  the  Bud- 
longs  were  enduring  the  illness  with- 
out entertaining  the  microbe. 

It  is  almost  as  much  trouble  to  in- 
herit money  nowadays  as  to  earn  it  in 
the  first  place.  Mr.  Budlong  was 
confronted  with  such  a  list  of  post- 
mortem debts  that  must  be  postpaid 
for  his  deceased  Aunt  Ida  that  he  al- 
most begrudged  her  her  bit  of  very 
real  estate  in  Woodlawn.  And  the 
Budlongs  began  to  think  that  tomb- 
stones were  in  bad  form  if  ostenta- 
tious. Heirs  have  notoriously  sim- 
ple tastes  in  monuments. 

They  had  always  accounted  Aunt 

[48] 


ONLY  A  MILLIONAIRE 

Ida  a  hard-fisted  miser  before,  but 
now  she  began  to  look  like  a  slippery- 
palmed  spendthrift.  They  began  al- 
most to  suspect  the  probity  of  the 
poor  old  maid.  Worse  yet,  they 
feared  that  a  later  will  might  turn  up 
bequeathing  all  her  money  to  some 
abominable  charity  or  other.  She 
had  been  addicted  to  occasional  sub- 
scriptions during  her  lifetime. 

The  Budlongs  themselves  were  be- 
ginning, even  at  this  distance  from 
their  money-to-be,  to  suffer  its  infec- 
tion, its  inevitable  reaction  on  the 
character.  Those  who  live  beyond 
their  means  joyously  when  their 
means  are  small,  become  small  them- 
selves, when  their  means  get  beyond 
living  beyond.  The  Budlongs  began 
to  figure  percentages  on  sums  left  in 
[49] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

the  bank  or  put  out  on  mortgages. 
They  began  to  think  money;  and 
money  is  money,  large  or  small. 
Mrs.  Budlong  began  to  feel  that  she 
had  been  unjust  to  Aunt  Ida.  What 
she  had  called  miserliness  was  really 
prudence  and  thrift  and  other  pleas- 
ant-sounding virtues.  What  she  had 
called  liberality  was  wanton  waste. 

Finally  her  social  debts  reached 
such  a  mass  that  she  decided  to  give 
a  large  dinner  to  wipe  off  a  great 
number  at  once.  But  now  when  she 
calculated  that  the  olives,  the  turkey, 
the  Malaga  grapes,  the  English  wal- 
nuts, the  salted  almonds  and  a  man 
from  the  hotel  to  wait  on  table,  would 
total  up  twenty-five  dollars  or  so,  she 
found  herself  figuring  how  much 
twenty-five  dollars  would  amount  to 

[50] 


ONLY  A  MILLIONAIRE 

in  twenty-five  years  at  compound  in- 
terest. 

She  grew  frantic  to  be  quit  of 
Carthage — to  rub  it  off  her  visiting 
list.  Unconsciously  her  motto  be- 
came Cato's  ruthless  Carthago  de- 
lenda  est. 

But  she  could  neither  delete  Car- 
thage from  her  map,  nor  free  her 
feet  from  its  dust.  Her  husband's 
business  required  him  yet  awhile. 
Even  to  close  it  up  took  time.  And 
he  would  not,  and  could  not,  borrow 
money  on  Aunt  Ida's  estate  till  he 
was  sure  that  it  was  his. 

But  all  the  while  the  festival  rev- 
eled on.  People  in  Carthage  to 
whom  New  York  was  an  inaccessible 
Carcassone,  were  now  planning  to 
visit  Mrs.  Budlong  there  at  the  pa- 

[51] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

latial  home  she  had  described.  Some 
of  them  frankly  told  her  they  were 
coming  to  see  her.  Wealth  took  on 
a  new  discomfort. 

Sally  Swezey  afflicted  the  telephone 
with  gossip:  "As  Mrs.  Talbot  was 
saying  only  yes'day,  my  dear,  so 
many  folks  have  threatened  to  visit 
you  in  your  home  on  Fifth  Avenue 
that  you'll  have  to  hang  hammocks  in 
your  front  yard." 

And  now  they  had  spoiled  even 
her  future  for  her.  What  pride 
could  she  take  in  having  a  gorgeous 
home  on  Fifth  Avenue  with  all  these 
Carthage  people  rocking  on  the  front 
porch.  Probably  some  warm  even- 
ing when  Mrs.  Hotel  Vanderbilt 
was  driving  by  in  her  new  barouche, 
it  would  be  just  like  Roscoe  Detwil- 

[52] 


ONLY  A  MILLIONAIRE 

ler  to  turn  in  at  the  gate,  flounce 
down  on  the  top  step  and  sit  there 
with  his  vest  unbuttoned,  and  his 
seersucker  coat  under  his  arm,  while 
he  mopped  the  inside  of  his  hat  with 
his  handkerchief. 

But  that  was  the  discomfort  of  the 
morrow.  To-day  had  its  own  spawn. 
One  morning  she  was  called  to  the 
telephone  by  the  merciless  Sallie 
Swezey  with  a  new  infliction.  There 
was  something  almost  ghoulish  in 
Mrs.  Swezey 's  cackling  glee  as  she 
sang  out  across  the  wire: 

"We're  all  so  glad,  my  dear,  that 
the  next  meeting  of  the  Progressive 
Euchre  is  to  be  at  your  house." 

Mrs.  Budlong's  chin  dropped. 
She  had  quite  forgotten  this.  Sallie 
chortled  on: 

[53] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

"And  say,  do  you  know  what?" 

"What?" 

"Everybody  says  you're  going  to 
give  solid  gold  prizes  and  that  even 
your  booby  prize  will  be  handsomer 
than  the  first  prize  was  at  Mrs.  Det- 
willer's." 

"Ha,  ha!"  laughed  Mrs.  Budlong 
in  a  tone  that  sounded  just  like  the 
spelling. 

Mrs.  Budlong's  wealth  seemed  to 
be  accepted  as  a  sort  of  municipal 
legacy.  All  Carthage  assumed  to 
own  it  in  community,  and  to  enjoy  it 
with  her.  Her  walls  rang  with  the 
hilarity  of  her  neighbors.  But  her 
laughter  took  on  more  and  more  the 
sound  of  icicles  snapping  from  the 
eaves  of  a  shed. 

She  became  the  logical  candidate 

[54] 


ONLY  A  MILLIONAIRE 

for  all  the  chief  offices  in  clubs  and 
societies  and  circles.  She  suddenly 
found  herself  seven  or  eight  presi- 
dents and  at  least  eleven  chairwomen. 
The  richest  woman  in  town  hereto- 
fore was  Mrs.  Foster  Herpers,  wife 
of  the  pole  and  shaft  manufacturer. 
He  owned  about  half  of  the  real  es- 
tate in  town,  but  his  wife  had  to  dis- 
till expenses  out  of  him  in  pennies. 
With  a  profound  sigh  of  relief  she 
resigned  all  her  honors  in  Mrs.  Bud- 
long's  favor. 

Being  president  chiefly  meant  lend- 
ing one's  house  for  meetings  as  well 
as  one's  china  and  tea  and  sandwiches, 
and  being  five  dollars  ahead  of  any- 
body else  in  every  subscription.  Mrs. 
Budlong  was  panic-stricken  with  her 
own  success,  for  there  is  nothing 

[55] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

harder  to  handle  than  a  dam-break 
of  prosperity. 

Worse  yet,  Mr.  Budlong  was 
ceasing  to  be  the  meek  thing  of  yore. 
Every  day  was  the  first  of  the  month 
with  him. 

It  was  well  on  in  November  when 
he  flung  himself  into  a  Morris  chair 
one  evening  and  groaned  aloud: 

"I  don't  believe  Aunt  Ida  ever  left 
any  money.  If  she  did  I  don't  be- 
lieve we'll  ever  get  any  of  it.  And 
if  we  do,  I  know  we'll  not  have  a 
sniff  at  it  before  January.  One  of 
the  lawyers  has  been  called  abroad 
on  another  case.  We've  got  to  stay 
in  Carthage,  at  least  over  Christ- 


mas." 


"Christmas!"     The  word  crackled 
and    sputtered   in   Mrs.    Budlong's 

[56] 


ONLY  A  MILLIONAIRE 

brain  like  a  fuse  in  the  dark.  The 
past  month  had  been  so  packed  with 
other  excitements  that  she  had  for- 
gotten the  very  word.  Now  it  blew 
up  and  came  down  as  if  one  of  her 
own  unstable  Christmas  trees  had 
toppled  over  on  her  with  all  its  ropes 
of  tinsel,  its  lambent  tapers,  and  its 
eggshell  splendors. 


V 

THE  BITER  BIT 

FIRST,  Mrs.  Budlong  felt 
amazement  that  she  could  have 
so  ignored  the  very  focus  of  her 
former  ambition.  Then  she  felt 
shame  at  her  unpreparedness.  She 
caught  the  evening  paper  out  of  her 
husband's  lap  to  find  the  date.  No- 
vember ninth  and  not  a  Christmas 
thing  begun.  Yet  a  few  days  and 
the  news-stands  would  have  apprised 
her  that  Christmas  was  coming,  for 
by  the  middle  of  November  all  the 
magazines  put  on  their  holly  and 
their  chromos  of  the  three  Magi  and 

[58] 


THE  BITER  BIT 

their  Santa  Clauses,  as  women  put 
on  summer  straw  hats  at  Easter. 

Mrs.  Budlong's  hands  sought  and 
wrung  each  other  as  if  in  mutual  re- 
proach. They  had  been  pouring  tea 
and  passing  wafers  when  they  should 
have  been  Dorcassing  at  their  Christ- 
mas tasks.  It  had  been  left  for  her 
husband  of  all  people  to  warn  her 
that  her  own  special  Bacchanal  was 
imminent. 

If  he  had  been  a  day  later,  the 
neighbors  would  have  anticipated 
him  as  well  as  the  magazines.  The 
Christmas  idea  seemed  to  strike  the 
whole  town  at  once.  Mrs.  Budlong 
became  the  victim  of  her  own  classic 
device  of  pretending  to  let  slip  a  se- 
cret. The  townswomen  shamelessly 
turned  her  own  formula  against  her. 

5  [59] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

Mrs.  Detwiller  met  her  at  church 
and  said: 

"Yesterday  morning  at  eleven  I 
had  the  most  curious  presentiment, 
my  dear.  I  remember  the  hour  so 
exactly  because  I've  been  making  it  a 
rule  to  begin  work  on  your  Christmas 
present  every  morning  at—  Oh,  but 
I  didn't  inTend  to  let  you  know. 
No,  dearie,  I  won't  tell  you  what  it  is. 
But  I  can't  help  believing  it's  Just 
what  you'll  need  in  New  York." 

Myra  Eppley,  with  whom  Mrs. 
Budlong  had  never  exchanged  Christ- 
mas presents,  at  all,  but  with  whom 
an  intimacy  had  sprung  up  since  Mrs. 
Budlong  came  into  the  reputation  of 
her  money — Myra  Eppley  had  the 
effrontery  to  call  up  on  the  telephone 
and  say: 

[60] 


THE  BITER  BIT 

"Would  you  mind  telling  me,  my 
dear,  the  shade  of  wall  paper  you're 
going  to  have  in  your  New  York  par- 
lor, because  I'm  making  you  the 
daintiest  little — well,  no  matter,  but 
will  you  tell  me?" 

Poor  Mrs.  Budlong  almost  swoon- 
ed from  the  telephone.  She  did  not 
know  what  the  color  of  her  wall  paper 
would  be  in  New  York.  She  did  not 
know  that  she  would  ever  have  wall 
paper  in  New  York.  She  only  knew 
that  Myra  Eppley,  too,  was  calling 
her  "my  dear."  Myra  Eppley  also 
was  going  to  give  her  a  Christmas 
present.  And  would  have  to  be 
given  one. 

Mrs.  Budlong  had  received  fair 
warning,  but  she  felt  about  as  grate- 
ful as  a  wayfarer  feels  to  the  rattle- 
[61] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

snake  that  whizzes  "Make  r-r-r-ready 
for  the  corrroner-r-r." 

Next,  young  Mrs.  Chur  (Editha 
Cinnamon  as  was,  for  she  had  finally 
landed  Mr.  Chur  in  spite  of  the  acci- 
dent— or  because  of  it)  called  up  to 
say: 

"Oh,  my  dear,  my  husband  wants 
to  know  what  brand  of  cigars  your 
husband  smokes;  and  would  you  tell 
me,  dearie — it's  rather  personal, 
but — what  size  bath-slippers  you 
wear?" 

When  Sally  Swezey  came  to  the 
Progressive  Euchre  skirmish  at  Mrs. 
Budlong's  she  noted  with  joy  that 
her  hint  had  borne  fruit.  The  prizes 
were  indeed  of  solid  gold.  Mr.  Bud- 
long  did  not  learn  it  till  the  first  of 
the  following  month  when  the  bill 
[62] 


THE  BITER  BIT 

came  in  from  Jim  Henderson's  jew- 
elry store. 

As  if  she  had  not  done  enough  in 
forcing  solid  gold  prizes  on  Mr.  Bud- 
long,  Sally  had  to  say: 

"I'm  just  dying  to  see  your  back 
parlor,  my  dear,  this  next  Christmas 
afternoon.  It  has  always  been  a 
sight  for  sore  eyes;  but  this  Christ- 
mas it  will  be  a  perfect  wonder,  for 
I  do  declare  everybody  in  town  is  go- 
ing to  send  you  something  nice." 

This  conviction  was  already  chill- 
ing Mrs.  Budlong's  marrow.  Of  old 
she  would  have  rejoiced  at  the  golden 
triumph,  but  now  she  could  only  re- 
alize that  if  everybody  in  Carthage 
sent  her  something  nice,  it  was  be- 
cause everybody  in  Carthage  ex- 
pected something  nicer.  And  her 
[63] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

Christmas  crops  were  hopelessly 
backward.  At  a  time  when  she 
should  be  half  done,  she  could  not 
even  begin.  She  had  not  tatted  or 
smeared  or  hammered  a  thing. 


VI 

DESPAIR  AND  AN  IDEA 

DAYS  and  days  went  by  in  a 
stupor  of  dull  hopelessness. 
Thanksgiving  came  and  the  -Budlong 
turkey  might  as  well  have  been  a 
crow.  In  desperation  she  decided  to 
make  a  tentative  exploration  of  the 
shops  now  burgeoning  with  Christmas 
splendor;  every  window  a  spasm  of 
gewgaws.  Since  she  had  no  time  to 
make,  she  must  buy. 

The  length  of  her  list  sent  her  to 

the  cheaper  counters,  but  she  was  not 

permitted   to   browse   among  them. 

At  Strouther  and  Streckfuss's,  Mr. 

[65] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

Strouther  came  up  and  said  with 
reeking  unctuousness : 

"Vat  is  Mees  Bootlonk  doink  down 
here  amonkst  all  this  tresh?  Come 
see  our  import et  novelties." 

And  he  led  her  to  a  region  where 
the  minimum  price  was  MBBA- 
BD  JA,  which  meant  that  it  cost  12.25 
and  could  be  safely  marked  down  to 
23.75. 

She  eluded  him  and  got  back  to  the 
25-cent  realm  only  to  be  apprehended 
by  Mr.  Streckfuss,  who  beamed: 

"Ah,  nothink  is  here  for  a  lady 
like  you  are.  Only  fine  kvality  suits 
such  a  taste  you  got." 

By  almost  superfeminine  strength 

she     evaded    purchasing     anything. 

She  went  to  other  shops  only  to  be 

haled    to    the    expensive    counters. 

[66] 


DESPAIR  AND  AN  IDEA 

Storekeepers  simply  would  not  dis- 
cuss cheap  things  with  the  millionair- 
ess-elect. 

She  crept  home  and  threw  herself 
on  her  husband's  mercy.  He  had 
none  and  she  lighted  hard.  It  was 
the  first  of  December,  and  in  addi- 
tion to  his  monthly  rage,  Mr.  Bud- 
long  was  working  himself  up  to  his 
regular  pre-Christmas  frenzy,  when 
he  always  felt  poor  and  talked  poorer 
to  keep  the  family  in  check. 

His  face  was  a  study  when  he  had 
heard  his  wife's  state  of  mind. 
Forthwith  he  delivered  the  annual  ad- 
dress on  Christmas  folly  that  one 
hears  from  fathers  of  families  all 
round  the  world  at  this  time: 

"Christmas  has  quit  being  a  sign 
of  people's  affections,"  Mr.  Budlong 
[67] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

thundered.  "It  has  become  a  public 
menace.  It's  worse  than  Wall 
Street.  Wall  Street  is  supposed  to 
have  started  as  the  thermometer  of 
the  country's  business  and  now  it's 
gone  and  got  so  goldurn  big  that  the 
thermometer  is  makin'  the  weather. 
When  Wall  Street  feels  muggy  it's 
got  to  rain  and  the  sun  don't  dare 
shine  without  takin'  a  peek  at  the 
thermometer  first  off. 

"Christmas  ain't  any  longer  an  op- 
portunity to  show  good  will  to  your 
neighbors.  It's  a  time  when  you  got 
to  show  off  before  your  neighbors. 
You  women  make  yourselves  and  us 
men  sick  the  way  you  carry  on  all 
through  December.  And  the  chil- 
dren!— they're  worse'n  the  grown- 
ups. 

[68] 


DESPAIR  AND  AN  IDEA 

"Old-fashioned  Christmas  was  like 
old-fashioned  circuses — mostly  meant 
for  the  young  ones.  Nowadays  cir- 
cuses have  growed  so  big  and  so  im- 
proper that  nobody  would  dast  take  a 
child  to  one,  or  if  you  do,  they  get 
crazy  notions. 

"When  I  was  a  boy,  if  I  got  a  drum 
and  a  tin  horn  I  was  so  happy  I 
couldn't  keep  quiet.  But  last  Christ- 
mas little  Ulie  Junior  cried  all  day 
because  he  got  a  'leven  dollar  auto- 
mobile when  he  wanted  a  areaplane 
big  enough  to  carry  the  cat  over  the 
barn. 

"This  Christmas  trust  business 
ought  to  be  investigated  by  the  gov'- 
ment  and  dissolved.  Talk  about 
your  tariff  schedules!  What  we 
need  is  somebody  to  pare  down  this 
[69] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

Christmas  gouge.  It's  the  one  kind 
of  tax  you  can't  swear  off. 

"And  as  for  you — why,  you're  go- 
in'  daffy.  Other  years  I  didn't  mind 
so  much.  You  spent  a  lot  of  time 
and  some  money  on  your  annual 
splurge,  but  I  will  say,  you  took  in 
better'n  you  gave.  But  now  you're 
on  the  other  side  the  fence.  These 
Carthage  women  have  got  you  on  the 
run.  You'll  have  to  give  'em  twice 
as  good  as  they  send  or  you're  gone. 
You're  gone  anyway.  If  you  gave 
each  one  of  'em  a  gold  platter  full  of 
diamonds  they'd  say  you'd  inherited 
Aunt  Ida's  stinginess  as  well  as  her 
money." 

Mrs.  Budlong  went  on  twisting  her 
fingers :  "Oh,  of  course  you're  right, 
Ule.  But  what's  the  use  of  being 
[70] 


DESPAIR  AND  AN  IDEA 

right  when  it's  so  hateful?  All  I  can 
think  of  is  that  Everybody  in  town  is 
going  to  give  me  a  present !  Every- 
body!" 

"Can't  you  take  your  last  year's 
presents  and  pass  'em  along  to  other 
folks?" 

"Everybody  would  recognize  them, 
and  I'd  be  the  talk  of  the  town." 

"You're  that  anyway,  so  what  dif- 
ference does  it  make?" 

"I'd  rather  die." 

"You'd  save  a  lot  of  money  and 
trouble  if  you  did." 

"Just  look  at  the  list  of  presents  I 
must  give." 

She  handed  him  a  bundle  of  pa- 
pers. He  pushed  up  his  spectacles 
and  put  on  his  reading  glasses,  and 
instantly  snorted: 

[71] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

"Say!  What  is  this?  the  town  di- 
rectory?" 

He  had  not  read  far  down  the  list 
when  he  missed  one  important  name. 
"You've  overlooked  Mrs.  Alsop." 

"Oh,  her!  I've  quarreled  with 
her.  We  don't  speak,  thank  heaven." 

"It  would  be  money  in  your  pocket, 
if  you  didn't  speak  to  anybody. 
Gosh!"  he  slapped  his  knee.  "I  have 
an  idea.  Stop  speaking  to  every- 
body." 

"Don't  be  silly." 

"I  mean  it." 


VII 

FOILED 

ULYSSES  S.  G.  BUDLONG 
was  a  man  fertile  in  ideas 
and  unflinching  in  their  execution. 
Otherwise  he  would  never  have  at- 
tained his  present  unquestioned  su- 
premacy, as  the  leading  hay  and  feed 
merchant  in  Carthage. 

"It's  as  easy  as  falling  off  a  log," 
he  urged.  "You  women  are  always 
spatting  about  something.  Now's 
your  chance  to  capitalize  your  spats." 

"Men  are  such  im-boo-hoo-ciles !" 
was  Mrs.  Budlong's  comment,  as  she 
began  to  weep.  Her  husband  patted 
[73] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

her  with  a  timid  awkwardness  as  if 
she  were  the  nose  of  a  strange  horse. 
"There!  there!  we'll  fix  this  up  fine. 
What  did  you  quarrel  with  Mrs.  Al- 
sop  about?" 

"She  told  Sally  Swezey  and  Sally 
Swezey  told  me — that  I  used  my 
Carthage  presents  to  send  to  relatives 
in  other  towns." 

"She  flattered  you  at  that,"  said 
Mr.  Budlong  unconsolingly.  "But 
don't  you  dream  of  forgiving  her  till 
after  Christmas." 

Mrs.  Budlong  was  having  such  a 
good  cry,  and  enjoying  the  optical 
bath  so  heartily,  that  her  grief  became 
very  precious  to  her.  It  suggested 
what  a  beautiful  thing  grief  is  to 
those  who  make  a  fine  art  of  it. 

She  smiled  wet-liddedly.  "There 
[74] 


FOILED 

is  nothing  in  your  idea,  Ulie,  but  it 
has  suggested  a  good  one  to  me.  I'll 
announce  that  I  can't  celebrate 
Christmas  because  of  our  great  grief 
for  Aunt  Ida." 

"Great  grief!"  Mr.  Budlong 
echoed.  "Why,  you  couldn't  have 
celebrated  Aunt  Ida's  finish  more 
joyous  without  you'd  serenaded  her 
in  Woodlawn  with  a  brass  band." 

"Ulysses  Budlong!  you  ought  to  be 
ashamed  of  yourself  for  saying  such 
a  thing !"  But  she  suddenly  heard,  in 
fancy,  the  laugh  that  would  go  up  if 
she  sprung  such  an  excuse.  She  gave 
in: 

"We'll  have  to  quarrel  with  some- 
body then.  But  what  excuse  is 
there?" 

"Women  don't  need  any  real  ex- 
<5  [75] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

cuse.  You  simply  telephone  Sally 
Swezey  that  a  certain  person  told  you 
— and  you  won't  name  any  names — 
that  she  had  been  making  fun  of  you 
and  you'd  be  much  obliged  if  she 
never  spoke  to  you  again  for  you'd 
certainly  never  speak  to  her  again." 

"But  how  do  I  know  Sally  Swezey 
has  been  making  fun  of  me?" 

"Oh,  there  ain't  any  doubt  but 
what  everybody  in  town  is  doing 
that." 

"Ulysses  Budlong!  how  can  you 
talk  so!" 

"If  people  without  money  couldn't 
make  fun  of  people  with — what  con- 
solation would  they  have?  Anyway, 
it's  not  me  but  the  other  folks  you're 
supposed  to  quarrel  with.  You 
spend  an  hour  at  that  telephone  and 
[76] 


FOILED 

you  can  get  the  whole  town  by  the 
ears." 

"But  I  can't  use  the  same  excuse 
for  everybody." 

"You'll  think  up  plenty  once  you 
put  your  mind  to  it."  And  with  that 
another  excuse  came  in  pat.  Came 
in  howling  and  flagrant. 

Ulysses  Junior  burst  into  the  room, 
as  if  he  had  forgotten  the  presence  of 
the  door.  He  was  yelping  like  a 
coyote  and  from  his  tiny  nose  an  as- 
tonishing amount  of  blood  was  spout- 
ing. 

"What  on  earth  is  the  matter!"  the 
startled  mother  gasped.  "Come  here 
to  me,  you  poor  child- — and  be  care- 
ful not  to  bleed  on  the  new  rug." 

Ulysses'  articulation  was  impeded 
with  sobs  and  the  oscillations  of  three 
[77] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

semi-detached  teeth,  that  waved  in 
the  breeze  as  he  screamed:  "Little 
Clarence  Detwiller  LICKED  me! 
so  he  did!  and  I  on'y  p-pushed  him 
off  his  sled  into  a  puddle  of  ice  wa- 
wa-water  and  he  attackted  me  and 
kicked  my  f-f-Face-ace  off." 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Budlong  were  so 
elated  with  the  same  idea  that  they 
forgot  to  console  their  heart-broken 
offspring  with  more  than  Mr.  Bud- 
long's  curt,  "First  teeth  anyway; 
saves  you  a  trip  to  the  dentist."  He 
nodded  to  his  wife. 

"Just  the  excuse  we  were  looking 
for." 

"Sent  direct  from  heaven,"  nodded 

Mrs.  Budlong.     "You  call  up  Ros- 

coe  Detwiller  this  minute  and  tell  him 

his  son  has  criminal  tendencies  and 

[78] 


FOILED 

ought  to  be  in  jail  and  will  undoubt- 
edly die  on  the  gallows.  Then  he 
won't  speak  to  you  to-morrow." 

"You  bet  he  won't.  He'U  just 
quietly  do  to  me  what  his  boy  did  to 
Ulie.  No,  my  dear,  you  tell  all  that 
to  Mrs.  Detwiller  yourself." 

Mrs.  Budlong  tossed  her  head  with 
fine  contempt.  "What  cowards  men 
are!  always  shielding  themselves  be- 
hind women's  skirts.  Well,  if  you're 
afraid,  I'm  not.  I'll  give  her  the 
biggest  talking  to  she  ever  had  in  her 
born  days." 

She  rose  with  fortitude  and  started 
to  the  telephone,  sneered  at  it  and 
glared  at  it.  Her  husband  stood  by 
her  to  support  her  in  the  hour  of 
need.  He  watched  her  ask  for  the 
number,  and  snap  ferociously  at  the 
[79] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

central.  Then  she  fell  panicky  again 
and  held  the  transmitter  to  him  ap- 
pealingly.  He  waved  her  away 
scornfully. 

She  set  her  teeth  hard  and  there 
was  grimness  in  her  eye  and  tone  as 
she  said:  "Is  this  you,  Mrs.  Detwil- 

ler!  Oh,  yes,  thank  you,  I'm 

very  well.     I  wanted  to  tell  you-m 

oh,  yes,  he's  well,  too.    But  what 

I  started  to  say  was  Yes,  so 

Ulie  says!  Yes,  right  in  the 

face    Oh,    of    course,    

Naturally  Boys  will  be  

Oh,  I'm  sorry  you  punished 

him.     He's  such  a  sweet  child  - 

Oh,   don't   think  of  it.     I'm 

sure  it  was  all  Ulie's  fault.     It  will 
teach  him  better  next  time.     He's  so 
rough! Oh,  really,  how 

[80] 


FOILED 

awfully  sweet  of  you.  Good  night, 
dear." 

She  stuck  the  receiver  on  the  hook 
and  looked  for  a  hook  to  hang  herself 
on.  Her  eyes  were  shifty  with  shame 
as  she  mumbled: 

"I  couldn't  get  a  word  in  edgeways. 
She  apologized." 

"She  apologized!"  Mr.  Budlong 
roared.  "Why,  you  ate  out  of  her 
hand.  And  you  were  going  to  show 
me  what  a  coward  I —  Butter 
wouldn't  have  melted — say,  why 
didn't  you  kiss  her?" 

Mrs.  Budlong  was  suffering  a 
greater  dismay  than  remorse. 
"What  d'you  suppose  that  cat  of  a 
Clara  Detwiller's  going  to  do?"  she 
moaned.  "She's  going  to  make  her 
boy  send  Ulie  a  nice  Christmas  pres- 
[81] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

ent !  And  now  we'll  have  to  buy  one 
for  Ulie  to  give  to  him!" 

"Well,  of  all  the — oh,  you're  a 
great  manager,  you  are!  You  call 
up  a  woman  to  get  rid  of  giving  one 
Christmas  present,  and  now  you've 
got  to  give  two.  Here!  where  you 
going?" 

"I'm  going  to  that  phone  and  tell 
Mrs.  Detwiller  what  I  think  of  her." 

"You  keep  away  from  that  phone. 
Before  you  could  ring  off  again  her 
husband  would  have  a  Christmas  pres- 
ent wished  onto  ME !" 


VIII 

FOILED  AGAIN 

THE  next  morning  Mrs.  Bud- 
long  arose  from  dreams  of  find- 
ing bargains  after  all.  She  felt 
a  spirit  in  her  feet  that  led  her,  who 
knows  how,  to  the  Christmas-window 
street.  But  the  crowds  and  the  prices 
and  the  servility  of  the  sales  folk  drove 
her  out  again. 

On  her  laggard  way  home  she  saw 
Sally  Swezey,  lean  and  lanky  and 
somehow  reminding  her  of  a  fla- 
mingo. Sally  espied  her  from  afar 
and  stepped  a  little  higher.  Mrs. 
Budlong  remembered  her  husband's 

[83] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

suggestion.  She  made  a  quick  reso- 
lution to  do  or  die.  Her  cheek  was 
cold  and  white  and  her  heart  beat 
loud  and  fast,  but  she  tried  to  set  her 
double  chin  into  a  square  jaw,  and 
she  passed  Sally  Swezey  as  if  Sally 
Swezey  were  a  lamp-post  by  the 
curb — a  common  lamp-post  by  the 
curb,  and  nothing  more. 

She  heard  Sally's  gush  of  greeting 
stop  short  as  if  someone  had  turned 
a  faucet  in  her  throat;  she  heard  a 
gulp;  then  she  heard  a  strangled  si- 
lence. Then  she  heard  Sally  call  "her 
name  tentatively,  tenderly,  reproach- 
fully. Then  she  heard  no  more. 
And  she  knew  no  more  till  her  feet 
somehow  carried  her  home.  But  she 
had  hardly  time  to  flop  into  a  rocker 
and  utter  a  prayer  of  gratitude  and 

[84] 


FOILED  AGAIN 

pride  for  having  been  vouchsafed  the 
courage  to  snub  a  Carthaginian  be- 
fore Br-r-rr! — the  relentless  tele- 
phone was  on  her  trail.  She  knew 
just  who  it  was  and  she  braced  herself 
to  meet  one  of  Sally's  sharp-tongued 
assaults.  But  Sally  said — in  part: 
"Oh,  you  poor  darling  dear,  is  that 
you?  and  how  are  you  now?  I  was 
So  alarmed  for  you.  You  looked  So 
ill  and  worn  and — aren't  the  Christ- 
mas crowds  awful  this  year?  and 
nothing  fit  to  buy  and  such  prices! 
and — you  must  be  just  worn  out. 
You  really  must  spare  yourself,  for 
do  you  Know  what  you  Did,  dearest. 
You  went  right  By  me  without  See- 
ing me,  or  Answering  me !  Yes,  you 
did!  I  was  so  startled  that  I  didn't 
have  brains  enough  to  run  after  you 

[85] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

and  assist  you  home.  I'm  so  glad  you 
got  there  alive  and  I  Do  hope  you're 
feeling  better  and  I'm  so  aShamed 
of  myself  for  letting  you  go  all  that 
way  aLone  in  that  pitiful  conDition. 
Can  you  ever  for  Give  me?" 

When  Mr.  Budlong  came  home  for 
luncheon,  Mrs.  Budlong  told  him  the 
whole  story.  He  glared  at  her  with 
an  I-give-you-up  expression  and 
growled : 

"And  when  she  said  all  that,  what 
did  you  say?" 

"I  don't  know."  Mrs.  Budlong 
faltered.  "All  I  know  is  that  she's 
coming  over  this  afternoon  with  a  lot 
of  that  wine  jelly  I  gave  her  the  re- 
ceipt for." 

"And  what  do  you  intend  to  do 
this  time?"  Mr.  Budlong  de- 
[86] 


FOILED  AGAIN 

manded.  The  skeptic  in  his  tone 
stung  her  to  revolt.  She  could  usu- 
ally be  strong  in  the  presence  of  her 
husband.  She  looked  at  least  like 
Mrs.  Boadicea  as  she  said: 

"I  intend  to  tell  Sally  Swezey 
what  you  told  me  to.  And  I  will 
accept  no  apologies,  none  what- 
ever." 

When  Mr.  Budlong  came  home 
to  dinner  she  avoided  his  gaze.  She 
confessed  that  she  had  changed  her 
program.  She  hadn't  the  heart  to 
insult  poor  Sally,  and  she  had  ad- 
mitted that  she  was  a  bit  dizzy  and 
qualmish  and  she  had — well,  she — 
she — 

Mr.  Budlong  finished  for  her 
fiercely : 

"I  know!    You  ate  a  lot  of  her 

[87] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

wine  jelly,  and  you  told  her  she  was 
a  love  and  you  kissed  her  good-by, 
and  would  she  excuse  you  from  com- 
ing to  the  door  because  you  were 
still  a  little  wobbly." 

Mrs.  Budlong  looked  at  him  in  sur- 
prise: "She  told  you!" 

"Nah!     I  haven't  seen  her." 

"Then  how  on  earth  did  you  ever 
guess?"  she  babbled. 

"It  was  my  womanly  intuition!" 
he  snarled,  and  that  evening  he  went 
down  town  and  sat  in  the  hotel  lobby 
for  a  couple  of  hours.  He  usually 
did  this  anyway — in  summer  he  sat 
on  the  sidewalk — but  this  evening, 
he  did  it  with  a  certain  implication  of 
escape.  He  expressed  renunciation 
in  the  mere  shutting  of  the  door. 

On  the  way  home  Mr.  Budlong 

[88] 


FOILED  AGAIN 

was  busy  with  schemes.  His  mind 
turned  again  to  his  son. 

In  a  smallish  town,  a  growing  boy 
is  an  unfailing  source  of  casus  belli. 

As  an  inciter  of  feuds  there  was 
something  almost  Balkan  or  Moroc- 
can about  Ulysses  Budlong  Junior. 
Nearly  every  day  he  had  come  charg- 
ing into  the  house  with  bad  news  in 
some  form  or  other.  Some  rock  or 
snowball  he  had  cast  with  the  most 
innocent  of  intentions  had  gone 
through  a  window  or  a  milk  wagon 
or  somebody's  silk  hat.  Or  he  had 
pulled  a  small  girl's  hair,  or  taken  the 
skates  away  from  a  helpless  urchin. 
He  had  bad  luck  too  in  picking  vic- 
tims with  belligerent  big  brothers. 

Mr.  Budlong  recognized  these  des- 
perado traits  and  he  fully  expected 
[89] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

Ulysses  Junior  to  make  him  the 
father  of  a  convict.  Suddenly  now 
despair  became  hope.  Let  Mrs. 
Budlong  capitalize  her  spats;  he 
would  promote  Ulie's.  The  affair 
Detwiller  had  turned  out  badly,  but 
Mr.  Budlong  would  not  yield  to  one 
defeat.  He  watched  eagerly  for  the 
next  misdemeanor  of  his  young  hope- 
less. He  relied  on  him  to  embroil,  as 
it  were,  all  Europe  in  an  international 
conflict. 

But  the  dove  of  peace  seemed  to 
have  alighted  on  Ulysses'  shoulder. 
He  even  began  to  go  to  Sunday 
School — the  Methodist  this  year  be- 
cause they  had  given  the  largest  corn- 
ucopias in  town  the  Christmas  before. 
And  he  talked  nothing  but  Golden 
Texts  till  Mr.  Budlong  began  to  fear 
[90] 


FOILED  AGAIN 

that  he  would  one  day  be  the  father 
of  a  parson. 

Meanwhile,  Mrs.  Budlong  grew 
bellicose  again.  She  snubbed  peo- 
ple right  and  left,  but  they  gener- 
ously imputed  it  to  absent-minded- 
ness. She  failed  to  go  to  the  dinner 
party  the  Teeples  gave  in  her  honor, 
and  she  sent  no  excuse.  This  was 
the  unpardonable  sin  in  Carthage 
and  the  Budlong  chairs  sat  vacant 
through  the  dinner. 

But  Mrs.  Teeple  graciously  as- 
sumed that  she  was  ill  and  sent  over 
the  cut  flowers  off  the  table.  And 
she  hoped  the  poor  dear  would  feel 
better  soon. 

A  few  days  later  Mrs.  Budlong's 
pet  Maltese  kitten  was  done  to  nine 
deaths  at  once  by  the  Disney's  fox 
7  [91] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

terrier.  Mrs.  Budlong  mourned  the 
kitten,  but  there  was  consolation  in 
the  thought  that  she  could  now  cut 
the  Disneys  off  her  list. 

Before  she  could  get  the  kitten 
decently  interred  in  the  back  yard, 
Mrs.  Disney  was  at  the  front  door. 
She  flung  her  arms  round  Mrs.  Bud- 
long  and  wept,  declaring  that  she 
had  resolved  to  give  the  murderous 
terrier  away  to  a  farmer,  and  had 
already  sent  to  Chicago  for  a  pedi- 
greed Angora  to  replace  the  Mal- 
tese. It  would  arrive  the  day  before 
Christmas. 


IX 

WORSE,  AND  MORE  OF  IT 

AS  if  that  were  not  enough  for 
one  day,  in  the  afternoon 
Johnetta  Ackerley  called.  She  saw 
Mrs.  Budlong  at  an  upper  window 
and  waved  to  her  as  she  came  along 
the  walk.  When  the  cook  arrived 
upstairs  like  a  grand  piano  moving 
in,  Mrs.  Budlong  said  in  an  icy  tone : 

"Not  at  home." 

"But  I  told  her  you  was.  And 
she  seen  you  at  the  windy." 

"Not!— at!— home!" 

"But  I'm  after  telling  her—" 

Mrs.  Budlong  could  be  as  stern  as 
[93] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

steel  with  her  husband  or  her  servants. 
She  cowed  Brigida  into  lumbering 
downstairs  with  the  message.  Mrs. 
Budlong  went  to  the  window  to 
triumph  over  her  victim's  retreat  in 
a  panic  of  confusion. 

Instead,  she  heard  a  light  patter  of 
footsteps  and  Johnetta  Ackerley 
hurried  into  the  room. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  are  you  ill?  Par- 
don my  coming  right  up,  but  the  cook 
takes  so  long  and  I  was  so  worried 
for  fear  you  were — but  you  aren't, 
are  you?" 

Mrs.  Budlong  was  at  bay.  She 
glared  at  the  intruder  and  threw  up 
her  chin.  Johnetta  stared  at  her 
aghast. 

"Why,  my  dear!  you  aren't  mad 
at  me,  are  you?" 

[94] 


WORSE,  AND  MORE  OF  IT 

Mrs.  Budlong  smiled  bitterly,  and 
said  nothing.  Johnetta  shrilled: 

"Why,  what  have  I  done?" 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  what  had  she 
done?  All  that  Mrs.  Budlong  could 
think  of  was  her  husband's  unused 
suggestion  for  a  war  with  Sally 
Swezey.  She  spoke  through  locked 
teeth : 

"It's  not  what  you've  done  but 
what  you've  said." 

"Why,  what  have  I  said?" 

"You  know  well  enough  what 
you've  been  saying  behind  my  back, 
and  you  needn't  think  that  people 
don't  come  and  tell  me.  I  name  no 
names,  but  I  know!  Oh,  I  know!" 

Now,  of  course,  everybody  says 
things  behind  everybody-else's  back 
that  nobody  would  care  to  have  re- 
[95] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

peated  to  anybody.  Through  John- 
etta  Ackerley's  memory  dashed  a 
hundred  caustic  comments  she  had 
made  on  Mrs.  Budlong.  She  blushed 
and  sighed,  turned  away  and  closed 
the  door  after  her,  like  the  last  line  of 
an  elegy. 

A  surge  of  triumph  swept  over 
Mrs.  Budlong.  Success  at  last. 

Then  the  door  opened  and  John- 
etta  reappeared  on  the  sill  with  a 
look  of  angelic  contrition. 

"I  hardly  know  what  to  say,"  she 
said.  "Of  course,  I  must  admit  I  did 
rather  forget  myself.  It  was  at  the 
last  meeting  of  the  Progressive 
Euchre  Club  and  everybody  was  crit- 
icizing you  for  having  solid  gold 
prizes  when  they  were  at  your  house. 
They  said  it  was  vulgar  ostentation. 
[96] 


WORSE,  AND  MORE  OF  IT 

I  didn't  say  anything  for  the  longest 
time,  but  finally  when  they  all  said 
your  money  had  gone  to  your  head, 
hadn't  it,  I  admit  I  did  mumble,  'It 
seems  so.'  But  it  is  only  what  every- 
body else  says  all  the  time,  and  I  as- 
sure you  I  didn't  really  mean  it.  Of 
course  nobody  can  behave  just  the 
same  after  they  are  a  millionaire  as 
they  did  before.  But  I  am  awfully 
fond  of  you  and — and — " 

"It  was  most  disloyal,"  said  Mrs. 
Budlong.  "And  to  think  that  after 
tearing  me  to  pieces  behind  my  back, 
you  could  come  and  call  on  me." 

It  was  a  fine  speech,  but  after  she 
heard  herself  say  it,  Mrs.  Budlong 
had  a  sinking  feeling  that  if  she  her- 
self had  never  called  on  anybody  she 
had  not  criticized  she  would  have 
[971 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

stayed  at  home  all  her  life.  But 
Johnetta  Ackerley  took  another  line. 
She  threw  herself  on  Mrs.  Budlong's 
mercy,  and  if  Mrs.  Budlong  boasted 
of  anything  more  than  another  it  was 
her  mercy. 

"I  have  just  been  at  the  church," 
said  Johnetta,  "helping  to  decorate 
it  for  Christmas  week,  and  I  was 
hanging  up  a  big  motto  'Peace  on 
Earth,  Good  Will  to  Men'  and  I 
think  it  ought  to  apply  to  women, 
too.  I  grovel  in  apology  and  I  pray 
you  to  forgive  me.  You  can't  re- 
fuse your  forgiveness  when  I  im- 
plore it,  can  you?" 

Mrs.  Budlong  wanted  to  but  could 

not  and  the  two  women  fell  about 

each  other's  throats  and  exchanged 

moan  for  moan.     As  they  were  com- 

[98] 


WORSE,  AND  MORE  OF  IT 

fortably  dabbing  each  other's  tears 
from  their  cheeks  and  sniffing  their 
own,  and  laughing  cosily  after  the 
rain,  Johnetta  giggled  and  sobbed  at 
once: 

"The  idea  of  your  thinking  I  didn't 
just  love  you — and  me  working  my 
fingers  to  the  bone  making  a  Christ- 
mas present  for  you!" 


X 

A  WELL-LAID  PLAN 

IN  the  Civil  War  there  were  over 
two  thousand  battles  and  the  de- 
tails could  not  be  reported  in  a  life- 
time. But  their  result  can  be  stated 
in  a  phrase.  The  same  brevity  must 
apply  to  the  campaigns,  the  strata- 
gems, ballistics  and  tactics  of  Mrs. 
Budlong:  numberless  efforts  at  seces- 
sion ended  as  a  lost  cause. 

There  was  one  more  desperate 
struggle.  While  only  a  few  days 
stood  between  her  and  her  famous 
Christmas  afternoons,  she  and  her 
dour  husband  were  having  a  bitter 
[100] 


A  WELL-LAID  PLAN 

council  of  war.     She  had  another  at- 
tack of  inspiration. 

"I  have  it!  the  very  thing!  Why 
haven't  we  thought  of  it  before? 
Quarantine !" 

"Quarantine?"  echoed  Mr.  Bud- 
long  as  if  the  word  were  gibberish. 

"Yes.  If  we  had  something  con- 
tagious in  the  house  and  a  quarantine 
on,  people  couldn't  come  here  with 
their  odious  gifts  and  they  would  be 
so  afraid  to  get  ours  that  they'd  be 
much  obliged  to  us  for  not  sending 
them  any." 

For  the  first  time  in  years  Mr. 
Budlong  paid  Mrs.  Budlong  a  sin- 
cere homage: 

"You're  a  genius.  It  takes  a 
woman  to  squirm  out  of  a  difficulty 
after  all." 

[101] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

He  was  so  excited  he  actually 
kissed  her — and  he  hadn't  finished  his 
evening  paper  at  that! 

This  overjoyed  her  so  far  that  she 
fairly  glowed. 

"Oh,  I'm  so  glad  you  approve, 
Ulie  dear.  And  you'll  help  me, 
won't  you?" 

"You  bet  I  will,  ducky  dove." 

"That's  glorious.  Now  which  will 
you  pretend  to  have,  yellow  fever  or 
smallpox  or — " 

"Which  will  I  pretend  to  have? 
Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  expect 
ME  to  go  bed  with  a  fatal  disease?" 

"It  doesn't  have  to  be  fatal,  my 
love.  Just  so  long  as  it's  contagious, 
you  know." 

"Well,  of  all  the— what's  to  hap- 
pen to  my  business?" 

[102] 


A  WELL-LAID  PLAN 

"Why,  you  can  call  it  a  vacation. 
And  you  can  pretend  to  get  well  after 
Christmas;  or  you  can  have  the  doc- 
tor say  it  wasn't  yellow  fever  after 
all." 

"But  I  stay  in  bed  for  several 
days,  eh?" 

"Oh,  you  can  move  round  all  you 
want,  just  so  Yt  you  don't  go  out- 
doors, and  keep  away  from  the  win- 
dows." 

Mr.  Budlong's  admiration  was  re- 
verting to  its  normal  state.  He 
growled : 

"You  women  would  be  an  awful 
joke,  if  you  were  only  a  little  fun- 
nier. If  you're  so  keen  on  this  quar- 
antine business  you  quarantine  your- 
self. You  can  have  yellow  fever,  or 
scarlet,  or  green  or  any  color  you 

[103] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

like — robin's  egg  blue  fever  for  all 
I  care." 

"But,  my  darling,  I  can't  be  having 
those  things!  You  know  I  don't  be- 
lieve in  them  this  year,  since  I  be- 
came a —  oh,  it  wouldn't  do  at  all  for 
Me.  But  You  could  have  it  because 
You  believe  in  diseases." 

"You  bet  I  do,  and  I  believe  you've 
got  softening  of  the  brain."  He 
paced  the  floor  in  an  effort  to  keep 
up  with  his  temper.  Eventually  he 
stopped  short.  He  remembered  that 
his  son  had  failed  to  help  the  family 
out  in  its  distress.  He  said: 

"Let  Ulie  have  something." 


XI 

GANG  AGLEY  AGAIN 

MRS.  BUDLONG  felt  a  cer- 
tain superstitious  uneasiness, 
but  was  finally  won  over,  and  Ulie 
was  unanimously  elected  the  scape- 
goat— or  in  more  modern  form,  the 
goat. 

Ulie  was  in  bed  at  the  time  sleep- 
ing like  an  innocent  cherub  and  smil- 
ing in  his  sleep.  He  was  dreaming 
of  a  great  invention:  he  would  set  a 
figure-4  trap  near  his  fireplace  and 
snare  Santa  Claus  by  the  foot. 
Then  from  a  safe  ambush  under  the 
bed,  he  would  assail  the  old  gentle- 

[105] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

man  with  his  nigger-shooter  till  he 
laid  him  low,  whereupon  he  could 
rifle  the  entire  pack  at  his  leisure,  and 
select  what  he  wanted.  Ulie  had  not 
heen  attending  Sabbath  School  in 
vain.  The  lesson  of  the  week  con- 
cerned David  and  Goliath. 

From  such  dreams  as  these  Ulie 
woke  the  next  morning  to  be  told 
that  he  need  not  leave  his  bed.  He 
had  scarlet  fever  and  must  keep 
close  under  his  cover. 

"Scarlet  nothin'l"  was  Ulie's  re- 
ply. "I  gotter  go  to  a  meetin'  of  the 
Youth's  Helpin'  Hand  Socirety  this 
afternoon  and  I'll  be  darned  if  I  stay 
in  any  dog-on  bed." 

Mr.  Budlong  finally  persuaded 
him — Ulie  wasn't  dressed  yet  and  it 
hurts  worse  on  the  bare  hide.  Then 

[106] 


GANG  AGLEY  AGAIN 

Mr.  Budlong  hurried  down  town  to 
bribe  a  doctor  and  borrow  a  red  pla- 
card of  the  board  of  health.  He  was 
just  rounding  the  corner  on  the  way 
home  when  he  caught  sight  of  Ulie 
descending  from  the  window  by 
means  of  a  knotted  sheet.  Ulie  had 
only  a  nightgown  on,  and  owing 
to  the  heavy  wind  it  wasn't  much 
on. 

He  dropped  to  the  ground  before 
Mr.  Budlong  could  reach  him,  then 
darted  away  across  lots  barefooted 
through  the  snow  towards  the  Det- 
willers'.  Mr.  Budlong  treed  him 
just  before  he  reached  the  neigh- 
bors. But  the  boy  would  not  come 
down  till  his  father  promised  immu- 
nity both  from  punishment  and  from 
scarlet  fever. 

8  [107] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

The  Detwillers  were  arriving  on 
the  run,  so  the  father  promised,  hid 
the  scarlet  fever  propaganda  in  his 
inside  pocket,  wrapped  Ulie  in  his 
own  overcoat  and  carried  him  home. 
There  was  so  much  dread  of  pneu- 
monia that  the  guilty  parents  could 
not  include  Ulie  in  any  more  schemes. 
And  they  could  think  of  no  schemes. 
The  day  before  the  Day  Before 
Christmas  found  them  in  a  panic. 
The  Day  Before  found  them  grimly 
resolved  to  stand  siege. 

On  the  blessed  Eve  they  sat  before 
their  cheerless  fire-front  and  stared 
at  the  packages  that  had  been  pour- 
ing in  all  day  long.  The  old  post- 
man had  staggered  under  the  final 
load  and  hinted  so  broadly  for  a 
Christmas  present  that  he  got  one — 

[108] 


GANG  AGLEY  AGAIN 

the  first  breach  in  their  solemn  re- 
solve. 

They  had  excepted  Ulie,  of  course, 
from  the  embargo.  But  they  had 
been  in  such  a  flurry  that  they  had 
postponed  him  till  they  forgot  him 
entirely.  The  doorbell  was  rung  so 
incessantly  throughout  the  evening 
that  the  cook  sat  on  the  hall  stairs  to 
be  handy.  She  piled  the  packages 
up  on  the  piano  till  they  spilled  off. 
The  piano  lamp  was  gradually  sink- 
ing beneath  the  encroaching  tide. 
Presents  were  brought  in  wagons, 
carriages,  buggies,  carts,  by  coach- 
men, gardeners,  cooks,  maids,  mes- 
senger boys,  and  children  of  all  ages 
and  dimensions. 

On  any  other  occasion  Mrs.  Bud- 
long  would  have  been  running  here 
[109] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

and  there,  peeking  into  parcels  and 
restraining  her  curiosity  till  the  next 
day  out  of  sheer  joy  in  curiosity. 
Now  she  opened  never  a  bundle. 
She  could  only  think  of  the  morrow 
when  all  of  these  donors  found  that 
reciprocity  had  gone  down  to  defeat. 
The  Budlongs  avoided  each  other's 
eyes.  They  were  thinking  the  same 
thing.  The  strain  endured  till  it 
tested  their  metal  to  the  breaking 
point.  When  three  enormous  pack- 
ages were  brought  to  the  door  by  the 
Detwillers'  hired  man,  Mrs.  Bud- 
long  broke  out  hysterically: 

"I  just  can't  stand  it." 

"Hell!"  roared  Mr.  Budlong. 
"Get  on  your  hat  and  coat.  We'll 
go  down  and  buy  everything  that's 
left  in  town." 

[no] 


XII 

AN  AMAZING  CHRISTMAS 

HOLIDAY  bargains  in  Car- 
thage were  not  brilliant. 
After  being  pawed  over  for  several 
weeks,  they  were  depressing  indeed. 
When  the  Budlongs  strode  into 
Strouther  and  Streckfuss's,  it  was 
nearly  ten  o'clock  at  night.  The 
sales-wretches,  mostly  pathetic  spin- 
sters of  both  sexes,  were  gaunt  and 
jaded.  They  yawned  incessantly 
and  held  on  to  the  counters. 

Even     Messrs.      Strouther     and 
Streckfuss   had   the   nap   worn   off 
their  plushy  sleekness.     They  were 
[in] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

surveying  the  wreckage,  and  dole- 
fully realizing  that  some  of  the 
Christmas  bills  would  not  be  paid  by 
the  Fourth  of  July. 

When  the  Budlongs  made  their  ir- 
ruption, they  were  not  received  cor- 
dially. Word  had  gone  abroad  that 
the  Budlongs  were  buying  all  their 
Christmas  presents  out  of  town. 
They  must  be,  for  they  bought  none 
in.  This  treachery  to  home  industry 
was  bitterly  resented.  Then  Bud- 
long  galvanized  everybody  with  a  cry 
like  a  flash  of  lightning: 

"I  want  to  buy  nearly  everything 
in  the  shop.  Get  busy." 

It  was  too  late  to  select.  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Budlong  with  their  lengthy  list 
in  hand  sprinted  up  one  aisle  and 
down  another,  pointing,  prodding, 

[112] 


AN  AMAZING  CHRISTMAS 

rarely  pausing  to  say  "How  much?" 
but  monotonously  chanting:  "Gimme 
this!  Gimme  that!  Gimme  two  of 
these!  Gimme  six  of  them!  Gim- 
me that!  Gimme  this!  Gimme 
them!" 

They  bought  glaring  garden  jars 
and  ghastly  vases,  scarf  pins  that 
would  disturb  the  peace,  silly  bisque 
figurines  for  mantels  and  what-nots, 
combs  and  brushes  that  would  raise 
the  hair  on  end  instead  of  allaying  it, 
oxidized  silverized  lead  pencils,  but- 
ton hooks,  tooth  brushes,  nail  files, 
cuticle  knives,  pin  cushions,  ink 
stands,  paper  weights,  picture  frames, 
bits  of  lace  and  intimate  white  things 
with  ribbons  in  them — Mr.  Budlong 
turned  away  while  she  priced  these. 

Strouther  and  Streckfuss  were  in 

[113] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

a  panic  of  joy  at  the  situation.  They 
managed  in  the  excitement  to  work 
off  a  number  of  old  horrors  that  had 
been  refused  for  years  and  years- 
ancient,  dust-stained  landmarks  on 
the  shelves.  Mr.  Strouther  showed 
the  things,  Mr.  Streckfuss  wrote  the 
list  of  purchases, — he  made  many 
mistakes  in  prices,  but  strangely 
never  to  his  own  damage;  and  the 
entire  staff  of  assistants  followed, 
taking  down,  and  wrapping  up,  and 
rushing  parcels  to  the  door,  where 
they  were  bundled  onto  a  wagon. 

Mr.  Budlong  should  have  been  a 
medieval  general.  He  pillaged  that 
store  with  the  thoroughness  of  the 
Crusaders  looting  Constantinople. 

The  town  clock  was  striking  mid- 
night as  the  Budlongs  dragged  them- 

[114] 


AN  AMAZING  CHRISTMAS 

selves  home.  There  was  much  yet 
to  be  done.  Parcels  must  be  opened, 
price  tags  removed,  gifts  done  up  in 
pink  tissue  paper  and  gold  twine, 
cards  must  be  inscribed  and  inserted 
and  the  parcels  rewrapped  and  ad- 
dressed. The  Strouther  and  Streck- 
fuss  driver  had  been  hired  at  an  ex- 
orbitant cost  to  sit  up  and  deliver  the 
gifts.  The  horses  had  not  been  con- 
sulted. They  leaned  on  each  other 
and  slept,  dreaming  of  oats. 

The  Budlong  parlor  was  soon  a 
hideous  scene.  The  husband  would 
open  a  bundle  and  sing  out,  "Who's 
this  big  immense  pink  and  purple 
cuspidor  for?" 

"That's  a  jardineer,"  Mrs.  Bud- 
long  would  gasp.  "It's  a  return  for 
that  horrible  cat  those  hateful  Dis- 

[115] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

neys  are  going  to  inflict  on  me. 
Here's  the  card." 

She  handed  him  a  holly-wreathed 
pasteboard  on  which  she  had  written, 
"For  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Disney  with 
most  affectionate  Yuletide  greet- 
ings." 

She  indited  cards  as  fast  as  she 
could  think  up  phrases.  She  sought 
for  variety,  but  the  eff ort  was  mad- 
dening. She  wrote,  "Very  merry 
Christmas,"  "The  merriest  of 
Xmases,"  "A  merry  merry  Yule- 
tide,"  "A  Happy  Christmas  and  a 
Merry  New  Year,"  "Christmas 
Greetings,"  "Xmas  Greetings," 
"Yuletide  Greetings,"  "Wishing  you 
a — "  "With  loving  wishes  for — " 
"Affectionate,"  and  so  on  and  so  on 
and  on  and  on.  She  scribbled  and 
[116] 


AN  AMAZING  CHRISTMAS 

scrawled  till  slumber  drugged  her 
and  her  pen  went  crazy.  When  she 
fell  asleep  she  was  writing  "A  Yuly 
Newmas  and  a  Happy  X-Year  to 
Swally  Sezey." 

The  delivery  man  pounded  on  the 
door  and  wild-eyed  Budlong  let  him 
in  from  the  night.  The  man  whis- 
pered that  he'd  have  to  start  at  once  if 
he  was  to  make  the  rounds  before  his 
horses  laid  down  on  him. 

Mr.  Budlong  called  his  wife,  but 
she  did  not  answer.  He  shook  her 
and  she  threatened  to  roll  off  the 
chair  on  to  a  divan.  Mr.  Budlong 
straightened  her  out  and  gazed  at  her 
in  hopeless  pity.  He  stared  at  the 
chaos  of  bundles. 

He  seized  the  pack  of  cards  from 
his  wife's  chubby  fingers  and  ran 
[117] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

here  and  there  jabbing  pasteboards 
into  bundles,  regardless. 

That  is  how  Myra  Eppley  acquired 
an  ash  tray  lined  with  cigar  bands, 
and  why  old  Mr.  Clute  was  amazed  to 
receive  a  card  offering  him  Mrs.  Bud- 
long's  "loving  and  affectionate  greet- 
ings." He  was  more  amazed  when 
he.  opened  the  bundle.  It  had  rib- 
bons in  it. 

There  were  other  amazements  in 
town  the  next  morning.  In  fact,  it 
was  the  amazingest  Christmas  Car- 
thage had  ever  had. 

As  fast  as  Mr.  Budlong  stuffed 
cards  into  bundles,  he  loaded  bundles 
into  the  driver's  arms  as  if  they  were 
sticks  of  wood.  The  driver  stacked 
them  up  in  his  wagon.  He  made 
seven  trips  in  all  and  some  of  the 

[118] 


AN  AMAZING  CHRISTMAS 

cards  fell  out  and  were  stuck  in  still 
wronger  bundles  than  before.  But 
both  the  driver  and  Mr.  Budlong 
were  too  sleepy  to  care.  The  driver 
finally  mounted  his  seat  and  called 
out  from  the  dark: 

"Say,  Mr.  Budlong,  where  do  I 
leave  these  packages — on  the  porch, 
or  do  I  ring  the  bell?" 

"Chuck  'em  through  the  windows! 
The  more  glass  you  break  the  better 
111  like  it." 

"All  right,  sir.  Get  apl  Good 
night,  sir,  and  wishing  you  a  Merry 
Christmas!" 

"Merry "  said  Mr.  Budlong, 

reaching  for  a  rock.  But  even  the 
stones  were  frozen  to  the  ground  and 
the  driver  escaped.  As  Mr.  Bud- 
long  closed  his  front  door,  a  thread 
[119] 


CHRISTMAS  PRESENTS 

of  crimson  spun  out  along  the  East  as 
if  somebody  were  going  to  wrap  the 
whole  world  up  in  a  red  string.  He 
did  not  want  it.  He  yawned  at  it. 

An  hour  or  so  later,  Ulie  awoke 
and  sat  up  with  a  start.  To  his  in- 
tense confusion,  he  bumped  the  top 
of  his  little  skull  on  the  bottom  of 
his  little  bed. 

He  was  calling  for  help  when  he 
realized  that  he  had  fallen  asleep  in 
his  ambush.  He  peered  forth  to  see 
if  he  had  snared  Santa  Claus. 

The  figure-4  trap  was  erect  and 
intact,  but  empty.  He  crawled  out 
and  ran  to  the  row  of  stockings  he 
had  hung  on  the  mantelpiece  as  a 
decoy. 

The  stockings  were  empty. 

With    a    shriek    of    disappointed 

[120] 


AN  AMAZING  CHRISTMAS 

rage,  Ulie  dashed  into  his  parents' 
room  to  protest. 

Their  bed  was  empty. 

He  ran  through  the  house,  stum- 
bled down  stairs  and  into  the  back 
parlor.  His  father  was  snoring  on 
a  mattress  of  Yuletide  parcels.  His 
mother  was  curled  up  on  a  divan  un- 
der the  smoking  piano  lamp.  Her 
hands  were  clutching  strands  of  gold 
cord  and  her  hair  was  pillowed  in  pink 
tissue  paper.  She  was  burbling  in 
her  sleep. 

Little  Ulie  bent  down  to  hear  what 
she  was  saying.  He  made  out 
faintly : 

"Mishing  you  a  Werry  Muschris 
and  a  Nappy  Hoosier." 

0) 


UC  SOUTWflN  HEXHONM.  U8RARY  FAOUTY 


A     000118019     9 


